Founding Engineer
At a glance
Mid-level Software Engineering role at Clera. San Francisco · full-time · $120,000–$250,000 base.
techroles summary, based on the employer's posting.
What you'll do
- Take loosely defined problems from user discovery through scoping, implementation, and production release
- Improve agent systems by working on their accuracy, reliability, capabilities, and underlying architectures
- Build Go services and React with TypeScript interfaces when the product needs full-stack work
- Set AI-assisted development practices, review code, and maintain quality across the codebase
What you bring
- You have production experience developing backend services in Go
- You bring zero to three years of professional software engineering experience
- You have built React and TypeScript applications and worked with CI/CD, testing, deployment, and production monitoring
- You can build and use REST or gRPC APIs within microservices, and are authorized to work in the United States without sponsorship
Who this fits
This suits an early-career engineer comfortable taking work from an unclear problem to a shipped product without detailed direction. You’ll work on-site in San Francisco, and U.S. work authorization without visa sponsorship is required.
From the employer
About the Role
A YC-backed enterprise AI SaaS startup is looking for a Founding Engineer to join their small, high-output team in San Francisco. The company is building an agentic operating system for the enterprise, with thousands of agents already deployed at scale-up startups and enterprise companies. They have strong product-market fit and are growing revenue rapidly month-over-month.
This is a founding-level role with CTO-level expectations. You'll take vague problems, scope them, build them end-to-end, and ship things that create real value — with no hand-holding and no waiting for specs. You need to be a full-stack engineer, an AI engineer, and a product engineer rolled into one. Former founders are especially encouraged to apply.
What You'll Do
Own large parts of the product end-to-end — from user insight all the way to production
Build and continuously improve agentic systems: accuracy, reliability, and capability
Work at the frontier of AI engineering — context engineering, tool use, agent architectures
Talk to users, understand their pain points, and scope features that genuinely solve problems
Ship full-stack when needed (Go backend, Vite + React + TypeScript frontend)
Champion AI-first development practices — coding agents, automation, and self-scaling workflows
Review code quickly while maintaining high standards across the codebase
What We're Looking For
Must-haves (dealbreakers):
Proven production experience building backend services in Go (Golang)
Authorized to work in the United States without visa sponsorship
Required skills:
Experience building frontend applications with React and TypeScript
Hands-on experience with CI/CD pipelines, automated testing, deployment workflows, and production monitoring/observability
Experience building and consuming REST and/or gRPC APIs in microservices architectures
0–3 years of professional software engineering experience (full-stack or equivalent)
Strong pluses:
Prior startup experience or time as a founding/early engineer
Experience building AI-driven products — agentic systems, LLMs, prompt engineering, or agent orchestration
Familiarity with cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, or equivalent) and containerization (Docker, Kubernetes)
Experience with relational (Postgres/MySQL) and NoSQL databases
AI research background or experience at an AI coding or tooling startup
Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or equivalent practical experience
You'll thrive here if you:
Have razor-sharp problem-solving instincts and move fast without sacrificing quality
Love Go and care about clean, maintainable code
Are obsessed with AI-first development tools (e.g. Claude Code, Cursor, coding agents)
Thrive in ambiguity — you don't need a PM to tell you what to build
Have built something from scratch before: a startup, a side project, or a feature that shipped and mattered
Compensation & Benefits
Salary: $120,000 – $250,000 USD annually
Generous equity reflecting the outsized impact of this founding role
Unlimited AI tooling budget
A true seat at the table — you'll shape the product and the company's direction
Location
This role is on-site in San Francisco, CA. Candidates must be authorized to work in the United States. Visa sponsorship is not available.
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