Clera

Founding Engineer, Agents

San Francisco
Salary
$200,000 - $300,000
Level
Mid
Work type
On-site · San Francisco
Visa
Sponsors visas

Open. First seen 28 October 2026.

Apply on the company's site →

About the role

About the Role

Join an early-stage AI company as a Founding Engineer building autonomous agents for complex computer-based work. You will own core systems that help agents execute reliably over extended periods, learn from accumulated knowledge, and demonstrate performance against human-level benchmarks.

What You'll Do

  • Build agents that pursue goals over weeks with minimal or no human intervention.
  • Design memory systems that help agents retain and use knowledge to improve over time.
  • Develop evaluation frameworks to determine whether agents outperform people on specific tasks.
  • Improve agent reliability and reduce the need for human review of individual runs.

What We're Looking For

  • Hands-on experience building production agents that people rely on, with a clear understanding of their failure modes.
  • Experience with agent memory, long-running execution, multi-step reasoning, and maintaining goal coherence over time.
  • A track record of building evaluation systems that inform real decisions, including comparisons against human-level baselines.
  • At least 1 to 2 years at a fast-growing or AI-focused startup, and evidence of substantive engineering work.
  • Published research that others build on, or software shipped at meaningful scale.
  • Strong engineering fundamentals and evidence of exceptional problem-solving, such as competitive programming, founding experience, or an equivalent credential.
  • Agent architecture experience is a plus. A collaborative, kind approach to working through challenging problems is valued.

Compensation & Benefits

$200,000 to $300,000 annual base salary, with up to $350,000 for exceptional candidates. Meaningful founding equity is available. Visa sponsorship is available.

Location

On-site, five days a week in San Francisco, California, United States.

The team: Engineering HIRES STEADILY

This role is one of 210 open in Engineering. 144 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 (103 of 210), TypeScript (95 of 210), Python (82 of 210), React (81 of 210), Machine Learning (42 of 210), PostgreSQL (39 of 210), JavaScript (36 of 210)

OTHER ROLES ON THIS TEAM

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

Other openings for this role

3 postings for this role in San Francisco since 19 October 2026, 1 still open. None has been taken down and posted again.

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PLACESSan Francisco 7,761United States 72,210
COMPANYJobs at Clera 212

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