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Clera

Founding RL Engineer

San Francisco
Salary
$125,000 - $200,000 annually
Level
Mid
Work type
On-site · San Francisco
Visa
Sponsors visas

Open. First seen 19 October 2026.

Apply on the company's site →

About the role

About the Role

Join an early-stage AI team building reinforcement learning systems to help AI agents handle complex work. You will own the full loop from environment design through training and evaluation, while helping shape the team's technical direction.

What You'll Do

  • Design and build reinforcement learning environments, reward functions, and training pipelines.
  • Train and fine-tune models using methods such as PPO, GRPO, DPO, RLHF, and RLAIF.
  • Build evaluation frameworks to measure model and agent performance.
  • Run experiments, interpret results, and use findings to guide what to try next.
  • Scale training on GPU clusters and maintain reliable training pipelines.
  • Turn research ideas into production systems and help establish engineering practices.
  • Contribute to hiring as the engineering team grows.

What We're Looking For

  • At least 2 years of hands-on experience in reinforcement learning or machine learning engineering.
  • Strong Python skills and deep experience with PyTorch or JAX.
  • Practical experience training models with reinforcement learning methods, including policy gradients, reward modeling, or RLHF.
  • Experience with distributed training, GPU infrastructure, RL environments, reward functions, training pipelines, and evaluation frameworks.
  • A track record of bringing research ideas into production, plus a degree in computer science, mathematics, physics, or a related field.
  • Experience with LLM post-training, agent training, simulation frameworks, or training libraries is a plus.

Compensation & Benefits

Compensation is $125,000 to $200,000 USD annually. Visa sponsorship is available.

Location

This is an on-site role based in San Francisco, California, United States.

What this role asks for

Particular to this role

PyTorch

Rare in Clera's other 299 open postings.

Standard for software engineering roles

Python

Common in software engineering postings at any company.

Compared with Clera's other open jobs.

The team: Engineering HIRES STEADILY

This role is one of 316 open in Engineering. 250 were posted in the last 30 days and the oldest in March: a team that hires all year rather than one being built.

WHAT THE TEAM WORKS WITH, ACROSS ITS POSTINGS

LLM (146 of 316), TypeScript (136 of 316), Python (134 of 316), React (110 of 316), Machine Learning (75 of 316), PostgreSQL (59 of 316), JavaScript (56 of 316)

OTHER ROLES ON THIS TEAM

From the team and dates on Clera's own job board.

Other openings for this role

2 open postings for this role in San Francisco, first posted 12 October 2026. The company is likely hiring for more than one position. None has been taken down and posted again.

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