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Clera

Staff Engineer, Agentic AI

San Francisco
Salary
$160,000 - $250,000 annually
Level
Staff
Work type
On-site · San Francisco
Visa
Not offered

Open. First seen 19 October 2026.

Apply on the company's site →

About the role

About the Role

Lead the development of agent intelligence that helps mechanical engineers complete multi-step workflows in desktop engineering software. You will combine hands-on engineering, technical leadership, and collaboration with user research and domain experts to improve real-world task completion and product value.

What You'll Do

  • Own agent task success metrics, establish baselines, and systematically improve completion rates across engineering workflows.
  • Design and build reproducible evaluation infrastructure based on validated user stories, including tests for cost efficiency and failure modes.
  • Set per-task token budgets and track the cost of completed workflows.
  • Interview engineers with research and domain teammates, document their workflows, and translate validated stories into benchmarks.
  • Prioritize workflow coverage based on customer value and technical feasibility.
  • Set the agent architecture for tool calling, state management, error recovery, model routing, and context management.
  • Lead a small AI engineering team while writing production code, reviewing designs, and unblocking teammates.
  • Work with product, integrations, and customers during proof-of-concept projects to align agent behavior with real usage.

What We're Looking For

  • At least 7 years of software engineering experience, including 2 or more years building LLM-based agents that take real-world actions.
  • Strong Python skills and deep experience with LLM application architecture, including model selection, retrieval, context management, orchestration, and tool calling.
  • Experience building rigorous agent evaluation and benchmarking systems that measure task completion, cost, and failure modes.
  • Technical leadership experience on a small engineering team, with a track record of reviewing code and continuing to contribute production software.
  • Experience shipping AI or LLM tools using proprietary engineering data or desktop engineering software.
  • Familiarity with function calling, tool APIs, tracing or observability, and evaluation tools.
  • Experience with desktop automation or application APIs, such as COM, and a background in mechanical engineering software, CAD/CAE, PLM, or an adjacent domain.
  • Understanding of deployment constraints on managed enterprise workstations.

Compensation & Benefits

Base salary: $160,000 to $250,000 USD annually. Visa sponsorship is not available.

Location

On-site in San Francisco, California, United States.

What this role asks for

Standard for software engineering roles

Python

Common in software engineering postings at any company.

Compared with Clera's other open jobs.

The team: Engineering HIRES STEADILY

This role is one of 313 open in Engineering. 247 were posted in the last 30 days and the oldest in March: a team that hires all year rather than one being built.

WHAT THE TEAM WORKS WITH, ACROSS ITS POSTINGS

LLM (145 of 313), TypeScript (136 of 313), Python (133 of 313), React (110 of 313), Machine Learning (74 of 313), PostgreSQL (59 of 313), JavaScript (56 of 313)

OTHER ROLES ON THIS TEAM

From the team and dates on Clera's own job board.

Other openings for this role

4 open postings for this role in San Francisco, first posted 29 September 2026. The company is likely hiring for more than one position. None has been taken down and posted again.

Salary context

6 other open postings titled Staff Engineer, Agentic AI state a salary: median USD 160,000 to USD 250,000 a year.

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