Full-Time

Founding Engineer

Updated on 8/1/2026

Clera

Clera

11-50 employees

AI-powered candidate matching for startup roles

Compensation Overview

$150k - $220k/yr

+ Equity participation

No H1B Sponsorship

San Francisco, CA, USA

In Person

On-site five days per week; relocation to San Francisco is required.

Category
Software Engineering (1)
Required Skills
LLM
JavaScript
Distributed Systems
Data Engineering
TypeScript
Microservices
AWS
REST APIs
Linux/Unix
Google Cloud Platform

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Requirements
  • The candidate must have at least 2 years of experience in full-stack or backend software engineering.
  • The candidate must be proficient in JavaScript and TypeScript.
  • The candidate must have experience with agent orchestration, large language models, or web scraping.
  • The candidate must have experience working with Linux servers in a production environment.
  • The candidate must have a proven track record of shipping code to production supporting a large user base.
  • The candidate must have experience building entire products end-to-end, not just isolated features.
  • The candidate must have strong computer science fundamentals.
  • The candidate must be authorized to work in the United States; visa sponsorship is not available.
  • The candidate must be available to work on-site in San Francisco five days per week and must relocate to San Francisco.
Responsibilities
  • Design, build, and operate core infrastructure including application programming interfaces, large-language-model-powered workflows, web scraping systems, and large-scale knowledge graph architecture.
  • Architect and maintain production-grade systems capable of handling millions of application programming interface requests, focusing 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 chief executive officer and chief technology officer on technical decisions, roadmap priorities, and foundational architectural choices.
  • Contribute across the stack, including developer documentation, technical tutorials, internal tooling, and experimental builds that showcase and stress-test application programming interfaces.
Desired Qualifications
  • Previous experience as a founder or early-stage engineer at a startup.
  • Familiarity with distributed systems, microservices, data pipelines, or cloud infrastructure such as Amazon Web Services or Google Cloud Platform.

Clera is a candidate-first AI recruitment platform that helps professionals connect with roles at venture-backed startups. It analyzes a candidate’s CV or LinkedIn profile with AI to match skills, experience, and career goals, delivering curated job opportunities across engineering, product, design, operations, and sales, plus interview prep and application support. Employers receive pre-vetted candidates and a curated list within 24 hours of sharing a job description, using a flat-fee, no upfront cost model. The goal is to speed up hiring for startups by quickly pairing strong, culture-fit candidates with suitable roles while supporting candidates through a tailored job-search experience.

Company Size

11-50

Company Stage

Seed

Total Funding

$3M

Headquarters

San Francisco, California

Founded

2025

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Simplify Jobs

Simplify's Take

What believers are saying

  • Clera surpassed $1M annualized revenue in six months post-launch.
  • It now connects 25,000+ talents with 130+ venture-backed startups.
  • The platform maintains 40% month-over-month growth from strong demand.

What critics are saying

  • Standout.work erodes Clera’s passive candidate pool by 25–40% in 6–12 months.
  • Alpha Apex Group undercuts Clera’s flat-fee model for high-value hires in 9–15 months.
  • Y Combinator’s Contrario could replace Clera’s agentic matching entirely in 12–24 months.

What makes Clera unique

  • Clera is the first AI talent agent representing candidates, not employers.
  • It uses deep profile analysis instead of keyword matching for relevant roles.
  • Candidates get direct intros to hiring managers within hours, not weeks.

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Benefits

Company Equity

Flexible Work Hours

Hybrid Work Options

Growth & Insights

Headcount

6 month growth

20%

1 year growth

28%

2 year growth

28%