Staff Software Engineer, Infrastructure

CLEAR; New York (NY); On-site; USD 215,000 - 260,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health insurance

L&D stipend

401(k) match

Adoption support

Job summary

CLEAR is building the secure identity platform of the future. We seek a Staff Software Engineer to shape our cloud infrastructure, spanning AWS networking, Kubernetes (EKS), IaC, and AI workload infra.

You will drive durable patterns, raise the bar in reliability, and help engineers build and operate scalable software. You will own platform direction, define standards, mentor engineers, and collaborate across teams to deliver secure, efficient, and observable infrastructure.

Qualifications

• Experience shaping cloud platforms at scale.
• Strong background in AWS networking and multi-account setups.
• Proficient in Python/Java and modern IaC tooling.

Responsibilities

• Define long-term cloud platform architecture across AWS, Kubernetes, and IaC.
• Lead cross-functional initiatives, including staging environments and AI workload infra.
• Establish standards for safe rollouts, observability, and security baselines.
• Act as product owner for the platform and build self-service capabilities.
• Mentor engineers and lead design/incident reviews.

Skills

AWS

Kubernetes

Python/Java

IaC

Observability

Incident response

Leadership

Tools

Pulumi

Terraform

CloudFormation

Datadog

Job description

CLEAR is building THE secure identity company of the future. Our mission is to make experiences safer and easier—physically and digitally. With more than 43 million Members and a growing network of partners across the world, CLEAR's secure identity platform is transforming the way people live, work, and travel. Whether it’s at the airport, stadium, or throughout your everyday life, CLEAR unlocks the magic of frictionless experiences.

As an Staff Software Engineer on Cloud Infrastructure, you'll set the technical direction for the cloud platform that underpins every system at CLEAR, from AWS networking and Kubernetes to staging environments and infrastructure for AI workloads. You'll design durable, cross-team patterns and standards that make it faster and safer for every engineer at CLEAR to build, ship, and operate reliable software.

What You'll Do:

• Drive the technical direction and long-term architecture of CLEAR's cloud platform across AWS, Kubernetes (EKS), networking, and Infrastructure as Code, balancing reliability, security, cost, and simplicity
• Lead cross-functional initiatives end to end, including production-like staging environments and infrastructure for AI workloads, from RFC and design through rollout and adoption
• Define and evolve infrastructure engineering standards (IaC patterns, safe rollout and rollback, observability, network and security baselines) that teams across engineering adopt
• Act as a product owner for the platform: gather feedback from engineering teams, find the systemic pain points, and build self-service capabilities that remove toil
• Raise the engineering bar by mentoring engineers, leading design and incident reviews, and turning lessons learned into lasting system improvements

How You'll Measure Success:

• Platform reliability: availability and SLO attainment of core infrastructure services, and fewer infrastructure-caused incidents
• Developer velocity: lead time for engineers or agents to provision environments and infrastructure, and adoption of staging and self-service tooling
• Operational efficiency: reduction in toil and manual operations, and improved cloud cost efficiency
• Standards adoption: share of services and infrastructure aligned with Cloud Infrastructure standards and patterns

What You're Great At:

• Cloud architecture at scale: deep AWS expertise (VPC design, routing, Security Groups, load balancing, Route53, IAM) and designing multi-account, multi-environment platforms; experience with edge and network security tooling (e.g., Cloudflare, Palo Alto) is a plus
• Software engineering: designing and building production software systems such as services, APIs, and internal developer tools in Python, Java or similar, with strong fundamentals in system design, testing, and maintainable code. You build systems, not just configure them.
• Kubernetes and container platforms: running and evolving production EKS clusters, including cluster networking, ingress, service mesh (e.g., Istio), and cluster lifecycle management
• Infrastructure as Code and software engineering: writing production-grade software in Python or another modern language, and building reusable, well-tested Pulumi (or Terraform/CloudFormation) modules
• Reliability and observability: designing for failure, safe rollouts, leading incident response, and instrumenting systems with tools like Datadog
• Technical leadership beyond your team: driving consensus across teams through RFCs and design reviews, communicating clear trade-offs, and mentoring other engineers

How You’ll be Rewarded:

At CLEAR we help YOU move forward - because when you're at your best, we're at our best. You'll work with talented team members who are motivated by our mission of making experiences safer and easier.

In our offices, you'll enjoy benefits like meals and snacks. We invest in your well-being and learning & development with our stipend and reimbursement programs.

We offer holistic total rewards, including comprehensive healthcare plans, family building benefits (fertility and adoption/surrogacy support), flexible time off, free OneMedical memberships for you and your dependents, and a 401(k) retirement plan with employer match. The base salary range for this role is $215,000 - $260,000, depending on levels of skills and experience.

The base salary range represents the low and high end of CLEAR's salary range for this position. Salaries will vary depending on various factors which include, but are not limited to location, education, skills, experience and performance. The range listed is just one component of CLEAR's total compensation package for employees and other rewards may include annual bonuses, commission, and Restricted Stock Units.

Qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, protected veteran status or other characteristics protected by law.

CLEAR provides reasonable accommodation to qualified individuals with disabilities or protected needs. Please let us know if you require a reasonable accommodation to apply for a job or perform your job. Examples of reasonable accommodation include, but are not limited to, time off, extra breaks, making a change to the application process or work procedures, policy exceptions, providing documents in an alternative format, live captioning or using a sign language interpreter, or using specialized equipment.

We are committed to a transparent and secure hiring process. All communications related to this role will come directly from a CLEAR employee through valid CLEAR channels (e.g., a valid @clearme.com email address or verified CLEAR LinkedIn profile). We encourage candidates to remain alert to job scams and to report any suspicious activity.