Ex-Founder / Ex-CTO

Clera; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 180,000 - 300,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Relocation support

Visa sponsorship

Job summary

Clera is seeking a founding-team leader to shape the technical and product direction of an AI infrastructure startup. This seat is unscoped to match your strengths—engineering, product, or operations—and is the technical leadership role for the right candidate.

You will define the first-90-day scope, shape the platform architecture, and partner with the founder on strategy while building the initial engineering team. Relocation and visa sponsorship are available.

Qualifications

• Has founded a venture-backed or bootstrapped company, OR served as CTO or first technical hire at a startup, OR shipped a product a team still credits you for.
• Can articulate a concrete, opinionated plan for what you would own in the first 90 days.
• Thrives in a small, high-trust, high-standards environment with limited process.
• Comfortable with ambiguity and building the role around strengths rather than a fixed job description.

Responsibilities

• Define and own your first-90-day scope across engineering, product, or operations, then drive it to completion.
• Shape the architecture and direction of a platform used by founders and operators to run AI-powered businesses.
• Work closely with the founder to set technical and product strategy at the earliest stage of company building.
• Help hire and set the bar for the first engineering team.

Skills

Founding startup experience

CTO or first tech hire

Strategic planning for 90 days

Ambiguity tolerance

Job description

About the Role

This is a founding-team seat at an early-stage AI infrastructure startup building the operating layer for AI-native service businesses. The role is deliberately unscoped: it is built around your strengths, whether that is engineering, product, or running the operating side of the company. For the right technical person, this is the technical leadership seat.

What You'll Do

• Define and own your first-90-day scope across engineering, product, or operations, then drive it to completion.

• Shape the architecture and direction of an agentic workforce platform used by founders and operators to run lean, AI-powered businesses.

• Work closely with the founder to set technical and product strategy at the earliest, highest-leverage stage of company building.

• Help hire and set the bar for the first engineering team.

What We're Looking For

• Has founded a venture-backed or bootstrapped company, regardless of outcome, OR served as CTO or first technical hire at a startup, OR shipped a product a team still credits you for, OR ran a service business in a vertical this platform is designed to replace.

• Can articulate a concrete, opinionated plan for what you would own and deliver in your first 90 days.

• Thrives in a small, high-trust, high-standards environment without established process.

• Comfortable with ambiguity and excited to build the role around your strengths rather than a fixed job description.

Compensation & Benefits

• Compensation and equity are sized for someone building the company, not joining it, with specifics discussed on the first call.
• Relocation support and visa sponsorship are available.

Location

On-site in San Francisco, CA, United States.