Staff Engineer

Clera

$250K — $300K *
Information Technology
8 - 10 years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • 10+ years of software engineering experience with proven product delivery at scale.
  • Hands-on experience managing Linux servers in live environments.
  • Expertise in agent orchestration, LLMs, or web scraping technologies.
  • Familiarity with distributed systems, cloud platforms (AWS or GCP), and microservices architecture.
  • Background in a high-growth tech or early-stage startup; founding experience is advantageous.
  • Strong problem-solving skills with a focus on first principles and self-direction.
  • Current residency in San Francisco is required.

Responsibilities

  • Design and build core APIs and LLM-powered workflows.
  • Architect production-grade systems for high performance and reliability.
  • Manage entire project lifecycle from concept through to deployment.
  • Collaborate with executive leadership on technical strategies and priorities.
  • Produce developer documentation, internal tools, and technical tutorials.

Benefits

  • Opportunity to shape technical strategy at a foundational level.
  • Real ownership over projects with significant impact.
  • Work in a dynamic startup environment with growth potential.
Full Job Description
About the Role

This is a foundational engineering role at a seed-stage AI/people-data startup, sitting at the intersection of infrastructure, LLM-powered workflows, and large-scale data systems. You'll work directly with executive leadership to shape technical strategy and build the core agent platform from the ground up - with real ownership and outsized impact.
What You'll Do
  • Design, build, and operate core APIs, LLM-powered workflows, web scraping systems, and large-scale knowledge graph architecture.
  • Architect and maintain production-grade systems capable of handling millions of API requests, with a strong focus on performance, cost efficiency, and reliability.
  • Own projects end-to-end - from ambiguous problem definition through deployment and iteration - shipping quickly without sacrificing system integrity.
  • Collaborate directly with executive leadership on technical decisions, roadmap priorities, and long-term architectural direction.
  • Contribute broadly across the stack, including developer documentation, internal tooling, technical tutorials, and experimental builds that stress-test the platform.
What We're Looking For
  • 10+ years of professional software engineering experience with a strong track record of shipping to production at scale.
  • Hands-on experience with Linux servers in production environments.
  • Experience with agent orchestration, LLMs, or web scraping.
  • Familiarity with distributed systems, cloud infrastructure (AWS or GCP), microservices, and data pipelines.
  • Background at a high-growth tech company or early-stage startup; prior founding experience is a strong plus.
  • High agency, comfort with ambiguity, and a first-principles approach to problem-solving.
  • Currently based in San Francisco.
Compensation & Benefits

Salary range: $250,000 - $300,000 USD annually. Visa sponsorship is not available.
Location

On-site in San Francisco, CA, United States.

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