Frontend Engineer - Cluster OS Platform

Clera; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 120,000 - 160,000; Full time

Job summary

Clera, a venture-backed Kubernetes infrastructure company, is hiring a Frontend Engineer to design and build interfaces for its flagship platform in San Francisco. This role is pivotal and on-site, requiring a strong background in frontend fundamentals, particularly with Next.js, React, and Kubernetes.

The ideal candidate has 5+ years with Kubernetes and hands-on experience in observability tooling. Competitive compensation and early-stage equity opportunities are part of the package.

Qualifications

• Strong frontend fundamentals with shipping user-facing infrastructure tools.
• Experience in building applications using Next.js, React, and Tailwind.
• Familiarity with Convex for real-time/reactive UIs.
• Production Kubernetes experience, including CRDs and troubleshooting.
• Infrastructure as Code proficiency with Terraform and Helm.
• Deep GitOps experience with ArgoCD and deployment patterns.
• Observability tooling proficiency with Prometheus and Grafana.
• 5+ years working in Kubernetes-based infrastructure.
• Strong Go skills for distributed systems components.

Responsibilities

• Own the cluster management user interface and provisioning flows.
• Design and build visualization systems for distributed state.
• Integrate with Kubernetes APIs and backend systems.
• Prototype interaction patterns and iterate based on feedback.
• Collaborate with backend teams for frontend architecture.
• Establish best practices for frontend code quality.

Skills

Frontend fundamentals

Next.js applications

React

Tailwind

Convex

Kubernetes

Terraform

Helm

GitOps

Prometheus

Grafana

Go programming

Job description

About the Role

A well-funded early-stage Kubernetes infrastructure company is hiring a Frontend Engineer to design and build the interface for their flagship OS-like platform — an experience that makes distributed systems approachable for both individual tinkerers and production engineering teams. You'll help define interaction patterns, visualizations, and real-time UIs that translate complex cluster state into clear, actionable experiences. This is a high-impact, early-team role based on-site in San Francisco.

What You'll Do

• Own the cluster management user interface, including provisioning flows, natural language interfaces, and real-time proactive system insights.

• Design and build visualization systems that make distributed state legible at a glance.

• Surface the right information by integrating with Kubernetes APIs, GitOps controllers, and gRPC/cRPC backends.

• Build real-time reactive UIs using Convex that scale from single users to large teams.

• Prototype new interaction patterns for infrastructure management, test assumptions quickly, and iterate based on feedback.

• Collaborate with backend and platform teams to design elegant protocols for the frontend.

• Establish frontend architecture patterns and best practices as an early engineering team member.

• Write maintainable, well-structured frontend code and champion code quality across the product.

What We're Looking For

Required

• Strong frontend fundamentals with a track record shipping user-facing infrastructure or developer tools.

• End-to-end experience building Next.js applications using React, Tailwind, and shadcn/ui.

• Experience or familiarity with Convex for real-time/reactive UI patterns.

• Production Kubernetes experience — internals, CRDs, operators, cluster architecture, etcd backup/restore, and troubleshooting cluster health.

• Infrastructure as Code proficiency with Terraform and Helm.

• Deep GitOps experience with ArgoCD and declarative infrastructure/continuous deployment patterns.

• Proficiency with observability tooling — Prometheus and Grafana for surfacing cluster health and performance.

• Comfortable working with complex state management that reflects real-world infrastructure.

• 5+ years working in production Kubernetes-based infrastructure.

• Strong Go skills for building system-level tooling, controllers, and distributed systems components.

Nice to Have

• Policy-as-code and security tooling for Kubernetes.

• Background in systems programming or distributed systems.

• Experience with cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, Azure) and their managed Kubernetes offerings.

• Track record shipping developer tools or infrastructure products.

• Familiarity with analytics tools such as PostHog.

Location & Work Arrangement

This role is on-site in San Francisco, CA. Remote work is not available for this position. Visa sponsorship is not available.

Compensation & Benefits

Competitive compensation commensurate with experience. Early-team equity opportunity at a venture-backed infrastructure startup.