Clera

Founding Engineer

San Francisco

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hirly's read of this role

Seniority: Mid level
Stated salary: $150,000 – $220,000 per year
Country: US
Work mode: On-site / unstated
First seen by hirly: 7 Nov 2026

Derived automatically from the posting. Upload your resume above to see how the role scores against it.

the posting

About the Role

A seed-stage AI data infrastructure startup in San Francisco is looking for a Founding Engineer with 1+ years of professional experience shipping to production. This is a foundational hire at an early-stage company building a people-data and agent platform — you'll have real ownership, work directly with leadership, and help shape the technical direction of the product as it scales toward Series A. Ideal for a high-agency, first-principles thinker who thrives in ambiguity and has founder aspirations.

What You'll Do

Design, build, and operate core infrastructure powering a people-data and AI agent platform, including APIs, LLM-powered workflows, 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 across cloud and Linux server environments.

Own projects end-to-end — from ambiguous problem definition through deployment and iteration — shipping quickly without sacrificing system integrity.

Collaborate directly with the CEO and CTO on technical decisions, roadmap priorities, and foundational architectural choices that will define the company's long-term direction.

Contribute broadly across the stack, including developer documentation, technical tutorials, internal tooling, and experimental builds that showcase and stress-test platform APIs.

What We're Looking For

Required: 1+ years of professional experience shipping software to production.

Hands-on experience with APIs, distributed systems, microservices, and data pipelines.

Comfort working with LLMs, AI agents, and knowledge graph or identity resolution systems is a strong plus.

Experience with cloud infrastructure (AWS or GCP) and Linux server environments.

Strong instincts for performance, reliability, and cost-efficient system design.

High agency — you move fast, take ownership, and operate well with limited direction.

First-principles thinker who is energized by building 0-to-1 in a fast-moving environment.

Compensation & Benefits

Salary: $150,000 – $220,000 USD annually

Early-stage equity as a founding team member

Note: Visa sponsorship is not available for this role

Location

This is an on-site role based in San Francisco, CA . Candidates must be available to work in-person.

Original posting on Clera's site ↗

Listed on hirly, a job board. hirly is not the employer: Clera is hiring for this role.

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