Forward Deployed Research Engineer

CLERA; Singapore; On-site; SGD 128,000 - 218,000; Full time

Job summary

Clera Labs, Inc. in Singapore is seeking an experienced engineer to tackle urgent, ambiguous technical challenges for AI research organizations and data partners.

You will own deployment requests end-to-end, build tools, and coordinate with research and go-to-market teams to unblock deployments. The role requires 2–4 years of hands-on experience, solid AI engineering skills, and a track record of producing careful technical work in an early-stage startup environment.

Qualifications

• Two to four years of experience in applied research engineering or forward-deployed engineering.
• Technical educational background and generalist AI engineering skills.
• Proficiency in Python, Docker, and Linux environments.
• Experience with benchmarks and evaluations for AI agents and RL training data.
• Research engineering experience alongside deployment work, with ownership of technical requests from triage to completion.
• Strong debugging skills across code, data, and environments.
• Comfort working with technical customers, vendors, and cross-functional teams.
• Ability to work independently amid ambiguity and communicate across time zones.
• Experience in an early-stage startup and producing careful, original technical work.

Responsibilities

• Diagnose ambiguous technical problems and clarify what needs to be done.
• Own deployment requests from triage through completion for partners and teams.
• Build tools and pipelines to solve urgent customer and partner problems.
• Coordinate with research and go-to-market teams to unblock deployments.
• Balance speed and quality when requirements are unclear and turnaround is urgent.
• Document recurring issues and convert manual work into reusable tools and processes.

Skills

Applied research engineering

Forward-deployed engineering

Python

Docker

Linux

RL/AI evaluation

Benchmarking AI agents

Debugging across code, data, and envs

Tooling/pipelines development

Customer/vendor communication

Education

Technical degree or equivalent

Tools

Docker

Linux

Python

Job description

About the Role

Join a small engineering team at an early-stage AI infrastructure company focused on reinforcement learning and AI evaluation. You will tackle urgent, ambiguous technical challenges for AI research organizations and data partners, helping unblock deployments and turn recurring problems into reusable tools.

What You'll Do

• Diagnose ambiguous technical problems and clarify what needs to be done.

• Own technical deployment requests from triage through completion for external partners and internal teams.

• Build tools and one-off pipelines to solve urgent customer and partner problems.

• Coordinate with research and go-to-market teams to unblock deployments.

• Balance speed and quality when requirements are unclear and turnaround is urgent.

• Document recurring issues and convert manual work into reusable tools and processes.

What We're Looking For

• Two to four years of experience in applied research engineering, forward-deployed engineering, or a similar hands‑on technical role.

• A technical educational background and strong generalist AI engineering skills.

• Proficiency in Python, Docker, and Linux environments.

• Experience with benchmarks and evaluations for AI agents and reinforcement learning training data, including sound judgment about task realism, rubric reliability, and useful trajectories.

• Research engineering experience alongside deployment work, with a record of owning technical requests from triage to completion.

• Strong debugging skills across code, data, and environments, plus experience building tools or pipelines for urgent problems.

• Comfort working directly with technical customers, vendors, and cross-functional teams, including during production or deployment issues.

• Ability to work independently amid ambiguity, exercise good judgment around speed, correctness, and security, and communicate effectively across time zones.

• Experience in an early-stage startup and a habit of producing careful, original technical work.

Compensation & Benefits

Base salary: $100,000 to $170,000 USD annually. Visa sponsorship is available.

Location

On-site in Singapore, Singapore.