Backend-Leaning Product Engineer
$275kClera
About the Role
Join a small, high-ownership product team as a backend-leaning product engineer focused on building real-world AI and automation products. This role matters because you'll own customer-facing features end-to-end, navigate messy integrations and legacy systems, and make product and engineering trade-offs with speed and strong judgment.
What You'll Do
Own features end-to-end from design through shipping and iteration
Make product and engineering decisions independently without heavy PM support
Execute under pressure and deliver high-quality engineering results, not just plans
Build and maintain backend systems, APIs, data models, and automation pipelines
Integrate with external tools, legacy systems, and messy third-party services
Design workflows and orchestration for AI/automation-driven products
Work comfortably in a very small, fast-moving startup team with little structure
Balance full-stack work when required, with a clear emphasis on backend ownership
Debug production issues and exercise strong engineering judgment
Collaborate closely with founders, customers, and cross-functional stakeholders
What We're Looking For
Early engineer, founding engineer, startup generalist, or strong product/backend engineer from a scaling startup
Track record of shipping real products, ideally 0-to-1 or in ambiguous/messy environments
Experience with backend systems, APIs, data modeling, automation, and integrations
Applied AI or workflow/orchestration experience (agentic workflows, RAG, LLM-enabled features) is a plus
Python experience is a plus; modern web/backend stacks are acceptable—stack fit matters less than raw engineering quality
Demonstrated ownership of customer-facing features and close work with founders or customers
Clear motivation for early-stage startup work and comfort with ambiguity and speed
Not a fit: frontend-only, data-only/internal-tools-only, pure DevOps/SRE without product ownership, pure research/ML without shipping experience, or candidates motivated primarily by corporate titles
Compensation & Details
Base compensation up to $275k plus meaningful equity.
Location
San Francisco, CA, USA. Hybrid/in-office required. Candidates must be based in or willing to relocate to the area.
#J-18808-Ljbffr$275k
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