Founding Engineer

CleraSan Francisco, CaliforniaOn-siteFull-timePrincipal, 12–15+ yearsListed 4 days ago

Apply now

About this role

About the Role

You'll be the second engineering hire at an early-stage B2B SaaS startup building AI agents for the industrial ingredient manufacturing industry, a sector worth hundreds of billions of dollars that underpins the global food supply. Working directly alongside the founding team, you'll have broad ownership across the full stack and a direct hand in every major product decision the company makes.

What You'll Do

- Build backend systems that ingest and process messy real-world documents from customer ERPs and inboxes, including large-scale PDF pipelines.
- Develop LLM-powered agents that complete complex, multi-page compliance and food safety documents end to end.
- Own features across the entire stack, from backend services through to the UI, picking up whatever the company needs next.
- Ship fast and iterate directly on real user feedback rather than prolonged architecture debate.

What We're Looking For

- A track record of shipping products or major features that real users actively used, with the ability to articulate tradeoffs and lessons learned.
- Full-stack range: comfortable taking a feature from backend service through to the UI without waiting for a specialist.
- Production experience with LLM-powered features or agents (not just prototypes or demos), ideally integrating multiple model providers.
- Strong backend engineering skills: services that ingest and process unstructured real-world data, plus solid relational schema design (Postgres or equivalent).
- Experience with or ability to ramp quickly on Kotlin and Spring Boot, React and Next.js, and cloud infrastructure (GCP, AWS, or Azure).
- Document processing, PDF parsing, or unstructured data extraction experience is a strong plus.
- Early-stage startup or founding engineer experience, or a demonstrated appetite for the ambiguity and ownership that comes with it.
- Based in or willing to relocate to San Francisco, this role is fully on-site five days a week.
- No degree or years-of-experience requirement; what you have built and how you think matters most.

Compensation & Benefits

Base salary: $200,000 to $300,000 annually. Equity: 0.5% to 2%. Visa sponsorship is not available.

Location

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