Backend-Leaning Product Engineer at Clera
San Francisco, CA
$275,000from the description
Jul 20, 2026
San Francisco, CA
Jul 22, 2026
What this job asks for AI summary
A backend-leaning product engineering role at an early-stage AI and automation startup, where the engineer takes full ownership of customer-facing features — from initial design through shipping and ongoing iteration. Day-to-day work involves building backend systems, APIs, and automation pipelines, as well as integrating with external services and legacy systems. Best suited to generalist engineers comfortable making independent product and technical decisions in an unstructured, fast-moving environment.
Senior level · San Francisco-Oakland-Berkeley, CA · Full-time
We read this from the posting text with AI. Skim the description below before ruling yourself out.
How this req sits in the market our data
Roughly 730 people in the San Francisco-Oakland-Berkeley, CA area plausibly meet what this posting asks for (software developers). range 550–950
Applicant volume Moderate — A normal amount of company. The rare requirements below are what will separate a shortlisted application from the rest.
Rare in this occupation — lead with these, and say what you built with them.
Most people in this occupation already list these. Still required — just not what gets you shortlisted.
What the occupation pays Median $190,744 (middle half $167,095–$224,501). This posting is about at that midpoint.
Estimated from BLS employment for this occupation and area, per-skill prevalence across our listing corpus, and published wage benchmarks — as of Jul 28, 2026. It is a model, not a headcount.
Why we read it this way (6)
The posting names no specific backend language or framework as a hard gate — Python is listed only under 'Nice to Have', and the JD explicitly states 'modern web/backend stacks are acceptable — engineering quality matters more than stack fit.'
Compensation is stated as 'Up to $275,000 depending on experience' — a ceiling with no floor. Both min and max are set to $275,000 to reflect the single figure given; the actual range is unspecified.
No overall years-of-experience number is stated; seniority is assessed as Senior based on the expectation of end-to-end feature ownership, independent product/engineering decision-making, and 0-to-1 startup context.
Applied AI/orchestration experience (agentic workflows, RAG, LLM-enabled features) and third-party API integration experience appear only under 'Nice to Have' and are marked accordingly.
The role is hybrid/in-office in San Francisco; fully remote candidates are explicitly not accommodated. Visa sponsorship is explicitly unavailable.
Ignored 3 non-technology phrase(s) as skills (responsibilities/concepts, not named tools): backend engineering, API design, third-party API integration.
Read the full posting
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