Staff Software Engineer

Clusia; New York (NY); On-site; USD 178,000 - 244,000; Full time

Job summary

Clusia is seeking a small, high-talent-density engineering team in New York City to own critical parts of the product from core architecture to customer-facing workflows. You will operate in a lean environment with no extra layers, making strong technical decisions in ambiguity and shipping code that earns trust in a highly regulated industry.

You will contribute to AI-powered product experiences, implement end-to-end solutions, and work closely with the CTO and founding engineers to build

Qualifications

• Hands-on experience with LLMs, agents, retrieval and production AI systems.
• End-to-end full-stack product engineering capability.
• Cloud services, deployment, observability, reliability, and security experience.
• Ability to design tests and benchmarks for model and agent quality.
• Pragmatic startup mindset with ownership of ambiguous problems.
• Empathy for users and practical, user-focused solutions.
• Proven ability to build something outside of work (projects, open-source, etc.).

Responsibilities

• Own core parts of the product from architecture to customer-facing workflows.
• Ship code in a lean team with no layers or fluff; understand customer problems deeply.
• Build AI-powered experiences and maintain trust in a highly regulated environment.

Skills

AI expertise

Full-stack engineering

Infrastructure depth

AI evaluation

Startup mindset

User empathy

Creating

Job description

Clusia is led by Reed Switzer, founder of Hopscotch, a B2B payments startup acquired by Avalara / Vista Equity Partners, and Nolan Hendrickson, who previously led engineering teams within Microsoft’s Defender organization. The company is venture-backed and has not yet been publicly announced.

Company Description

Clusia is the first AI-native assurance firm for companies that move money.

We conduct the audits and independent testing fintechs, payments companies, and banks are required to complete each year — including annual ACH audits and BSA/AML testing. Our in-house U.S.-based auditors do the work, while Clusia’s software reduces evidence gathering, pre-fills responses, and makes each engagement faster and more efficient.

We believe the next great assurance firm will be built like a software company. Clusia is building that firm — bringing more regulatory assurance under one roof and using technology to improve quality, increase auditor capacity, and deliver better economics for customers.

Role Description

We are looking for a small number of engineers to work closely with the CTO and our founding engineers.

This will not be a big team. We plan to stay lean, with high talent density, no layers, and no fluff. As a member of the technical staff, you’ll own important parts of the product and company from the beginning -- from core architecture and infrastructure to customer-facing workflows and AI-powered product experiences.

You won’t be handed a neatly scoped ticket queue. You’ll be expected to understand customer problems deeply, make good technical decisions in ambiguity, and build systems that can earn trust in a highly regulated environment.

Compensation range: $175,000 - $250,000 base salary + equity and benefits

Note: This role is in-person in New York City and you are required to ship code.

Why Join

• Compliance tech is next up. We believe compliance is entering the same kind of transformation legal tech has seen over the last two years: large, high-stakes workflows being rebuilt around AI, collaboration, and better systems of record.
• We’re building a small, high-talent-density team. Clusia will remain lean by design. There will be few openings and the bar for talent is incredibly high.
• Your work will matter at global scale. The systems we’re building will power critical operations for some of the largest financial institutions and technology companies in the world.
• You’ll work with founders who have done this before. The founding team has built and sold venture-backed companies in the past and is applying those lessons to build Clusia with focus, urgency, and ambition.

Qualifications

• AI expertise: You have hands-on experience with LLMs, agents, retrieval, prompting, and production AI systems.
• Full-stack product engineering: You can build clean, reliable product experiences end to end.
• Infrastructure depth: You’re comfortable with cloud services, deployment, observability, reliability, and security.
• AI evaluation experience: You know how to design tests, benchmarks, and feedback loops to measure model and agent quality.
• Startup execution mindset: You’re pragmatic, fast-moving, product-minded, and comfortable owning ambiguous technical problems.
• Empathy for users: You care deeply about the people using what you build, not just the technical elegance of the solution.
• Creating: You’ve built things outside of work -- maybe a Minecraft server as a kid, a side project, a tool for your friends, a company, an open-source project, or something nobody asked you to build.