Founding Engineer
Clera · San Francisco
OtherEngineeringFullTime
Clera is hiring a Founding Engineer in San Francisco, California (full-time). Posted 10 September 2026. Apply directly on Clera's own careers site — no account needed.
About the Role
This is a founding engineering role at a YC-backed enterprise AI startup building an agentic operating system that lets businesses deploy and orchestrate AI agents at scale. You will operate at a CTO-level of ownership, taking vague problems from user insight all the way to production with minimal hand-holding. The work you do here will directly shape the product and the company.
What You'll Do
Own large parts of the product end-to-end, from understanding user pain points to shipping to production.
Build and improve agentic systems, making them more accurate, reliable, and powerful.
Work at the frontier of AI engineering across context engineering, tool use, and agent architectures.
Talk to users regularly to scope features that actually solve real problems.
Ship full-stack when needed, including React and Vite frontend work.
Champion AI-first development practices such as coding agents and automation to scale your own output.
Review code quickly while maintaining high standards across the codebase.
What We're Looking For
3 or more years of hands-on product engineering experience, with a background in building and shipping, not consulting.
Strong Go backend engineering skills with an emphasis on clean, maintainable code.
Full-stack capability, comfortable working in a TypeScript and Vite frontend when needed.
Proven experience building something from scratch and seeing it through to production.
Hands-on experience with AI-first development tools such as Claude Code, Cursor, or coding agents.
Experience building AI products, ideally agentic systems or AI coding tools.
Thrives in ambiguity and does not need detailed specs to move forward.
Former founder experience or an AI research background is a plus.
Compensation & Benefits
Base salary between $120,000 and $250,000 USD annually, plus generous equity reflecting the outsized impact of this founding role. Visa sponsorship is not available.
Location
On-site in San Francisco, California, United States.
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