Founding Engineer & Tech Lead — AI Agent Platform (SF)

Clera; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 250,000 - 420,000; Full time

Job summary

Clera in San Francisco, CA is seeking a Founding Engineer & Head of Engineering to own the technical vision of an seed-stage AI agent marketplace. You’ll build hands-on while defining engineering culture and standards that shape the next 50 hires, and you’ll grow with a small, fast-moving team.

You’ll lead end-to-end architecture, from agent infrastructure to full-stack product, and work on-site in San Francisco with no visa sponsorship. Local candidates or relocation preferred.

Qualifications

• Proven track record of shipping a product or system 0→1 — end-to-end, from concept to production launch.
• Experience leading engineering teams or setting engineering direction at a founder-stage or early-stage startup.
• Hands-on full-stack capability: frontend (React or Vue) and backend (Go, Node.js, or Python), plus solid database experience (MySQL, Redis).
• Comfort designing scalable architectures, database schemas, and systems with real uptime and scale requirements.

Responsibilities

• Own the agent infrastructure and the full stack end-to-end (React/Vue frontend, Go/Node.js/Python backend, MySQL, Redis).
• Make the big architecture calls: database design, scalability, uptime, and system reliability for a production platform.
• Build AI-assisted engineering into team culture — establish prompt libraries, skill templates, and code-review standards so the whole team benefits.
• Engage directly with users to distinguish technically sound ideas from ones that only sound good on paper.
• Set the engineering direction and culture as the team scales — your decisions today become the foundation for future hires.

Skills

Full-stack engineering

Leadership

Startup experience

Job description

Clera in San Francisco, CA is seeking a Founding Engineer & Head of Engineering to own the technical vision of an seed-stage AI agent marketplace. You’ll build hands-on while defining engineering culture and standards that shape the next 50 hires, and you’ll grow with a small, fast-moving team.

You’ll lead end-to-end architecture, from agent infrastructure to full-stack product, and work on-site in San Francisco with no visa sponsorship. Local candidates or relocation preferred.