Founding Engineer
Clera · San Francisco · $150,000–$250,000 (stated in the posting)
About the Role
Join an early-stage AI company as its first engineering hire, working closely with the founder to turn a working AI-powered service business product into scalable infrastructure. You will shape the architecture and technical foundations for AI agents supporting real-world business operations, with the opportunity to grow into a CTO role as the company develops.
What You'll Do
Rebuild and scale the existing product into infrastructure designed to support substantial user growth.
Design and operate the agent runtime, including orchestration, memory, verification, and reliability systems.
Build across backend, infrastructure, frontend, and AI agents, taking projects from design through production.
Set technical architecture, engineering standards, and development practices as the first engineer.
Ship product improvements regularly to customers running real businesses.
What We're Looking For
At least 2 years of experience shipping production software, or an equivalent record as a founder, solo builder, or exceptional early-career engineer.
Full-stack range across backend, infrastructure, and user-facing product development, with the ability to make technical decisions independently.
Hands-on experience building and operating LLM or AI agent systems used by real customers, not just prototypes or demos.
Experience taking a working product or prototype to reliable production infrastructure, including architecture, data models, runtime, or orchestration.
Strong generalist engineering skills and the ability to explain the technical challenges behind systems you have built.
Experience with agent orchestration, memory, evaluations, verification, or multi-agent workflows is valuable. Background in service businesses such as recruiting or agencies is also useful.
Compensation & Benefits
Base salary is $150,000 to $250,000 annually, plus meaningful founding equity. Visa sponsorship and relocation support are available.
Location
On-site in San Francisco, California. The team works together in person.
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