Six Figure Work

Founding Engineer

Clera

Company websitegetclera.com (Clera, opens in new tab)

Base salary $150K  to $220K

Employer-published annual base salary, USD. Advertised base range in San Francisco, CA

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  • LocationSan Francisco, CA
  • WorkplaceOn-site
  • Status at last checkSource accepting applications when checked
  • Last checked (27 min ago) · observed since

About this job

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.

Source: Clera on Ashby · View original posting (opens in new tab)

This range next to 6 other live Clera roles with the nearest advertised base floor
Chart as a table
This range next to 6 other live Clera roles with the nearest advertised base floor
RolePublished base
Founding Engineer (this listing)$150K - $220K
Medical AI Researcher$150K - $230K
Head of Marketing$150K - $240K
Founding Product Designer$150K - $250K
Platform Engineer (Kubernetes)$150K - $200K
Senior Member of Technical Staff$150K - $215K
Founding Engineer$150K - $220K

Same $100K to $400K scale as every card. All Clera roles · How to read the bar

Observed changes

  1. First observed on the employer's board
  2. Began meeting the published-salary criteria
  3. fields changed
Observed since
Employer-stated posting date
2026-06-03
Where this pay comes from

Location as the employer wrote it: San Francisco

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

Method
Employer text, read with fixed rules and re-verified
Checked
Rule set
us-base-v2

The pay passage appears in the employer's own job text. Fixed, deterministic rules located it, and the passage below was checked against the stored copy of the posting.

What we verified

  • The pay figures come from the employer's own listing, quoted exactly above.
  • The pay is an annual base salary in US dollars with a minimum of at least $100,000.
  • The role was publicly listed on the employer's job board when last checked.

We do not verify what the employer will actually offer, whether the employer is still recruiting for the role, or anything beyond what the employer published. Full methodology.