Founding Engineer

Clera

Founding Engineer at a Seed-stage AI infrastructure startup. Shaping technical direction and building backend systems for high-throughput AI products.

Posted 7/19/2026full-timeLondon • 🇬🇧 United KingdomMid-LevelSeniorWebsite

Core Competencies

Role fit

Core Competencies

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Demonstrates expertise in designing and building scalable backend infrastructure, with a strong focus on distributed systems, performance optimization, and microservices architecture. Proficient in leveraging Kubernetes for deployment and management of high-throughput AI services.

Highest-signal resume keywords

Go (Golang) DevelopmentDistributed Systems DesignKubernetes ExpertiseSQL/NoSQL Database ManagementAPI Platform Development

ATS Keywords

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Applicant Tracking System Keywords

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Hard Skills

Backend Service DevelopmentMicroservices ArchitecturePerformance ProfilingConcurrency PatternsCaching Strategies

Soft Skills

Self-Starter MindsetPragmatic Decision-Making

Tools & Technologies

KubernetesSQL DatabasesNoSQL DatabasesAPI Platforms

Industry Keywords

High-Throughput SystemsProduction-Grade InfrastructureLatency-Sensitive SystemsEarly-Stage Startup Experience

Tech Stack

Tools & technologies

Distributed SystemsGoKubernetesMicroservicesNoSQLPythonSQL

About the role

Key responsibilities & impact

Design, build, and own core backend infrastructure powering a high-throughput, production-grade AI gateway serving billions of tokens per day.
Architect and evolve a pragmatic microservices system — including a core LLM gateway in Go and auxiliary ML/AI services in Python.
Make critical decisions around distributed systems design, database selection, caching strategies, and API platform architecture.
Profile and optimize performance for high-traffic, latency-sensitive systems (sub-20ms SLAs).
Work hands-on with Kubernetes to deploy, manage, and scale services reliably.
Redefine and evolve the tech stack as the product and team grow — you will be a key voice in those decisions.
Collaborate directly with founders to translate product vision into robust, scalable engineering solutions.

Requirements

What you’ll need

5+ years of experience building backend services using a compiled language — Go (Golang) strongly preferred.
Strong experience in distributed systems design and scalability.
Hands-on Kubernetes expertise in production environments.
Deep knowledge of SQL/NoSQL databases and caching layers — and the judgment to choose the right tool for the job.
Experience building or designing high-quality API platforms.
Experience with performance profiling and optimization for high-traffic systems.
Prior experience at an early-stage startup or on greenfield/founding engineering projects.
Strong understanding of concurrency patterns and how to apply them correctly.
The ability to balance pragmatism with quality — you know that "minimal" is not the same as "broken".
A self-starter mindset: you've taught yourself new technologies before and are eager to do it again.

Benefits

Comp & perks

Competitive total compensation package with significant equity.
Direct influence over product and company direction from day one.
Work alongside experienced founders in a high-ownership, high-impact environment.