Staff Engineer

Clera; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 250,000 - 300,000; Full time

Job summary

Clera in San Francisco, CA is seeking a foundational engineer to design and ship core APIs, LLM-powered workflows, and large-scale data systems. You will own projects from ambiguity to deployment, working directly with executive leadership to shape technical strategy and build the core agent platform from the ground up.

The role emphasizes production-grade systems, performance and cost efficiency, and cross-stack contributions from docs to tooling.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of production software engineering experience.
• Hands-on Linux production experience.
• Experience with LLMs, agent orchestration, or web scraping.
• Experience with distributed systems and cloud infrastructure (AWS or GCP).
• Startup or high-growth background; founding experience a plus.
• High agency and comfort with ambiguity; first-principles problem-solving.
• Currently based in San Francisco.

Responsibilities

• Design, build, and operate core APIs, LLM-powered workflows, web scraping systems, and large-scale knowledge graph architecture.
• Architect and maintain production-grade systems handling millions of API requests with focus on performance, cost, and reliability.
• Own projects end-to-end from definition to deployment and iteration while preserving system integrity.
• Collaborate with executive leadership on technical decisions, roadmap priorities, and long-term direction.
• Contribute across the stack with documentation, internal tools, and experimental builds.

Skills

Production at scale

System design

Leadership

Ambiguity tolerance

First-principles thinking

Tools

Linux servers

AWS

GCP

Microservices

Data pipelines

Web scraping

LLMs

Agent orchestration

Job description

About The Role

This is a foundational engineering role at a seed-stage AI/people-data startup, sitting at the intersection of infrastructure, LLM-powered workflows, and large-scale data systems. You'll work directly with executive leadership to shape technical strategy and build the core agent platform from the ground up — with real ownership and outsized impact.

What You'll Do

• Design, build, and operate core APIs, LLM-powered workflows, web scraping systems, and large-scale knowledge graph architecture.
• Architect and maintain production-grade systems capable of handling millions of API requests, with a strong focus on performance, cost efficiency, and reliability.
• Own projects end-to-end — from ambiguous problem definition through deployment and iteration — shipping quickly without sacrificing system integrity.
• Collaborate directly with executive leadership on technical decisions, roadmap priorities, and long-term architectural direction.
• Contribute broadly across the stack, including developer documentation, internal tooling, technical tutorials, and experimental builds that stress-test the platform.

What We're Looking For

• 10+ years of professional software engineering experience with a strong track record of shipping to production at scale.
• Hands-on experience with Linux servers in production environments.
• Experience with agent orchestration, LLMs, or web scraping.
• Familiarity with distributed systems, cloud infrastructure (AWS or GCP), microservices, and data pipelines.
• Background at a high-growth tech company or early-stage startup; prior founding experience is a strong plus.
• High agency, comfort with ambiguity, and a first-principles approach to problem-solving.
• Currently based in San Francisco.

Compensation & Benefits

Salary range: $250,000 – $300,000 USD annually. Visa sponsorship is not available.

Location

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