Founding Engineer
Clera
About this role
75% of the best candidates never apply to jobs. They're not looking. They're building.
We're building AI agents that do the actual work of recruiting: finding passive candidates, reaching out, qualifying, coaching, scheduling. End to end. No job boards. No applications. Direct connections between great people and great companies.
We raised a pre-seed from top investors and have been growing to marketplace scale (40K+ talents, hundreds of top startup customers). Now we need someone to help build the infrastructure that scales this 100x.
You'll work directly with our CTO Daniel and ship to production daily. This isn't ticket duty. You'll own entire systems and see them in the hands of users the same week.
Location: San Francisco · Visa sponsorship available
You'll take ownership of one or more of these systems as we scale:
TypeScript, React, Next.js, Supabase, Prisma, Typesense, OpenAI/Claude APIs, Trigger.dev
We're not checking boxes. We want someone who's done hard things and can show their work.
Don't have all of these? If you've done something impressive that's not on this list, we want to hear about it.
Small team, big ambitions. You'll work directly with the founders.
We respect your time. No endless rounds.
Other facts
About Clera
Clera is the agentic recruiting marketplace that activates the 75% of candidates who never apply. We're a fast-growing AI startup rethinking how top talent and companies find each other—solving the market's core problem of irrelevant matches through a talent-first approach. Rather than waiting for applications, our AI agents proactively connect passive candidates with leading companies like Luminai, Windsurf, and Mintlify, coaching them through the journey to actually get hired. We raised a large pre-seed round to tackle this challenge at scale.
Join the team
Cracked team of operators and ex-founders who moved together to a hackerhouse to go all-in and provide some real impact. You'll work directly with the founders:
• Sebastian (CEO) — Built two consumer marketplaces to 15K users, first at 17. Saw firsthand the value human recruiters provide.
• Daniel (CTO) — Head of Engineering at HR scale-up Lofino (acquired), led 15 engineers. Serial builder — first startup at 18, then a VC-backed marketplace.
• Alexander (COO) — Scaled a Series A messenger startup to €10M ARR as Chief of Staff. Led recruiting (80 FTEs) and growth.
Employee benefits
Interview process
- Founder Culture Interview
- Second Call with CTO
- Take Home Challenge
- Interview