Founding Engineer
$150k - $220kClera
Job Description
Job Description
About the Role
A seed-funded B2B SaaS startup in the people-data and AI agents space is looking for a high-agency Founding Engineer to build core agent infrastructure and help scale the platform toward a Series A milestone. You'll work directly with the founding team — including the CEO and CTO — owning critical systems that power a people-data and agent platform used by developers and enterprises alike. This is a rare opportunity to shape technical strategy from the ground up at a fast-growing, well-backed startup.
What You'll DoDesign, build, and operate core infrastructure including 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 across cloud and Linux server environments.
Own projects end-to-end — from ambiguous problem definition through deployment and iteration — shipping quickly without sacrificing system integrity.
Collaborate directly with the CEO and CTO on technical decisions, roadmap priorities, and foundational architectural choices that define long-term direction.
Contribute broadly across the stack, including developer documentation, technical tutorials, internal tooling, and experimental builds that showcase and stress-test APIs.
Required:
2+ years of experience in full-stack or backend software engineering.
Proficiency in JavaScript and TypeScript.
Experience with agent orchestration, LLMs, or web scraping.
Experience working with Linux servers in a production environment.
Proven track record of shipping code to production supporting a large user base.
Experience building entire products end-to-end, not just isolated features.
Strong computer science fundamentals.
Must be authorized to work in the United States — visa sponsorship is not available.
Must be available to work on-site in San Francisco 5 days per week; relocation is required.
Nice to Have:
Previous experience as a founder or early-stage engineer at a startup.
Familiarity with distributed systems, microservices, data pipelines, or cloud infrastructure (AWS/GCP).
Salary: $150,000 – $220,000 USD annually, depending on experience.
Equity participation as a founding team member.
San Francisco, CA — fully on-site, 5 days per week.
Relocation to San Francisco is required for this role.
No visa sponsorship available; must be authorized to work in the United States.
$150k - $200k
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