Founding Engineer
clera · San Francisco · onsite
USD 160,000 to 200,000 a year
About the RoleJoin an early engineering team building AI-powered software for industrial ingredient manufacturers. You will work closely with the founding team, take ownership across the product, and help automate complex document-heavy workflows in a traditionally underserved industry.
What You'll Do- Build backend systems that ingest and process real-world documents from customer systems and inboxes.
- Develop AI agents that complete complex compliance and food safety documents.
- Own product features end to end, from backend services and data models through to the user interface.
- Ship quickly, gather feedback from users, and improve the product based on what you learn.
- Work across application development, infrastructure, and AI as the needs of the team evolve.
What We're Looking For- Experience can range from 1 to 10+ years. We value shipped work, ownership, and increasing scope over a specific degree or career length.
- Prior experience as a founder, founding engineer, or one of the first engineers at an early-stage startup.
- A track record of building and launching production products or major features that real users rely on.
- Strong full-stack skills, including the ability to work across backend services, frontend interfaces, and infrastructure.
- Experience with AI or LLM products, agents, retrieval, or automation, ideally in production.
- Relevant technologies include Kotlin, Spring Boot, React, Next.js, Postgres, GCP, and commercial LLM providers. Experience with equivalent tools is welcome.
- Backend experience processing documents or unstructured data and designing relational schemas is valuable.
- Interest in industrial software, supply chains, food manufacturing, or other traditional industries is a plus.
Compensation & BenefitsBase salary is $160,000 to $200,000 annually, plus 0.5% to 2% equity. Visa sponsorship is not available.
LocationThis is an on-site role in San Francisco, California.