Founding Engineer – Potential CTO

Clera

Founding Engineer at AI-native digital health startup focusing on nervous system repair. Owning technical direction and building the AI coaching product end-to-end.

Posted 6/30/2026full-timeNew York City • New York • 🇺🇸 United StatesMid-LevelSenior💰 $170,000 per yearWebsite

Tech Stack

Tools & technologies

iOSJavaScriptNode.jsPostgresPythonReactReact Native

About the role

Key responsibilities & impact

Serve as Founding Engineer and potential CTO, owning technical direction and day-to-day execution.
Ship the AI coaching product v1 end-to-end — from a React Native mobile app to Claude-backed inference and wearable integrations.
Architect and build an AI-powered nervous system training coach, including model design, prompt engineering, tool use, and evaluation pipelines.
Translate biosignals (HRV, breath, motion, PPG) into a real-time personalized coaching layer.
Build and maintain AI-powered QA and testing pipelines to enable safe, fast daily shipping.
Own full-stack decisions across frontend, backend, infrastructure, and AI-native layers.
Integrate iOS/HealthKit and wearable platforms (e.g. Apple Watch, Oura, Whoop, EEG headbands).
Collaborate closely with the founding team on-site in Montreal, SF, or NYC.

Requirements

What you’ll need

Production experience shipping and operating Claude or other frontier LLM-based systems, including prompts, tool use, and evals.
Willingness and ability to work in-person in Montreal, San Francisco, or New York City.
3+ years in mobile/full-stack engineering with a track record of delivering 0→1 consumer mobile apps to real users.
Deep fluency in React Native with end-to-end ownership of the mobile lifecycle (build, release, debug, monitor, iterate).
Experience with AI-native infrastructure where AI functions are integrated across all layers — not bolted on.
Backend development in Node.js or Python with PostgreSQL and modern infra (Vercel, Fly, Render, or similar).
Ability to move fluidly across the full stack (frontend, backend, infra, AI) with minimal handholding.
Hands-on experience with HealthKit, wearable APIs, or real-time biosignal data (HRV, PPG, motion).
Founder mindset: comfortable making hard tradeoffs, operating with high autonomy, and building from zero.

Benefits

Comp & perks

Early-stage equity commensurate with founding-team scope
High-impact, high-ownership role with a direct path to CTO

ATS Keywords

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Hard Skills & Tools

Mobile App DevelopmentBackend DevelopmentNode.jsPythonPostgreSQLAI Model DesignPrompt EngineeringEvaluation PipelinesBiosignal ProcessingReal-Time Data Integration

Soft Skills

AutonomyFounder MindsetCollaboration