Software Engineer, AI & Data Systems

Clera; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 200,000 - 280,000; Full time

Job summary

Clera in San Francisco, California, is seeking a software engineer to join a small, high-ownership team building one of the world’s largest real-time identity graphs. You’ll work across backend, data, and infrastructure surfaces to ship customer-facing products and core platform capabilities—taking ambiguous problems from concept to production.

You will contribute across backend services, data pipelines, and AI tooling with a focus on reliability and security, collaborating directly with

Qualifications

• 1–6 years of software engineering experience.
• End-to-end ownership of production systems.
• Strong backend fundamentals and distributed systems knowledge.
• Experience with high-volume data pipelines and AI-native development.

Responsibilities

• Build customer-facing products and platform capabilities across backend, data, and frontend surfaces.
• Design and operate high-volume data pipelines with reliability, security, and observability.
• Build AI agents, agent harnesses, and tooling; operate them in production at scale.
• Make architecture decisions and iterate designs as requirements evolve.
• Work with founders and customers to translate vague requests into concrete software.

Skills

Backend fundamentals

Distributed systems

Data pipelines

AI development

End-to-end ownership

Startup experience

Education

CS degree or equivalent

Tools

LLMs

Agent frameworks

Data modelling

Job description

About The Role

Join a small, high-ownership engineering team at a seed-stage people data and AI infrastructure company building one of the world's largest real-time identity graphs. You'll work across backend, data, and infrastructure surfaces to ship customer-facing products and core platform capabilities — taking ambiguous problems all the way from concept to production.

What You'll Do

• Build and ship customer-facing products and platform capabilities spanning backend services, data infrastructure, and frontend surfaces.
• Design and operate high-volume data pipelines and services at massive scale with a strong focus on reliability, security, and observability.
• Build AI agents, agent harnesses, and developer tooling — then own and operate them reliably in production at scale.
• Make architecture decisions, articulate tradeoffs clearly, and iterate designs as requirements evolve.
• Work directly with founders and customers to translate vague requests into clear product decisions and working software.

What We're Looking For

• 1–6 years of software engineering experience, ideally at an early-stage startup (seed through Series A/B) shipping across both product and infrastructure.
• Demonstrated end-to-end ownership of a production system — from initial concept through deployment and ongoing operations.
• Strong backend engineering fundamentals: APIs, data modeling, and distributed systems.
• Hands-on experience building and operating high-volume data pipelines.
• Strong CS fundamentals, preferably from a rigorous academic background.
• Experience with AI-native development: LLMs, agent frameworks, and AI agent systems.
• Familiarity with identity resolution, data enrichment, or entity-matching systems is a plus.
• Comfortable using modern AI development tools aggressively while maintaining sound engineering judgment.
• Available to start by mid-September 2026.

Compensation & Benefits

Salary range: $200,000 – $280,000 USD annually.

Visa sponsorship is not available for this role.

Location

This is a full-time, on-site role based in San Francisco, California.