Staff Engineer - Agentic AI

The role

You will own the core agent intelligence layer to turn engineer intent into multi-step workflows across desktop engineering tools. You will lead a small team of AI engineers, a user researcher, and domain expert contractors.

What you will do

• Lead development of the core agent intelligence layer for desktop engineering software.
• Serve as technical lead for a small team of AI engineers, a user researcher, and domain expert contractors.
• Own the full product loop from user stories to implementation and benchmarking.
• Drive agent task success rate by defining eval frameworks and improving completion metrics.
• Set and enforce per-task token budgets and track cost per completed workflow.
• Build reproducible evaluation infrastructure grounded in validated user stories.
• Lead user story mapping and validation through interviews and collaboration.
• Own agent architecture decisions including tool-calling, state management, and model routing.
• Act as a player-coach by writing production code and reviewing designs.
• Collaborate cross-functionally with integrations, product, and customers during POCs.

Required qualifications

• 7+ years in software engineering
• At least 2 years building agentic LLM-based agents that act in the real world
• Deep experience designing LLM application architectures
• Strong evaluation and benchmarking instincts for agentic systems
• Proven track record shipping AI systems with measurable outcomes
• Strong Python skills
• Hands-on experience with LLM tooling
• Experience leading a small technical team of 3–6 engineers

Nice to have

• Experience with desktop automation, COM, or programmatic control of applications
• Background in mechanical engineering, CAD/CAE, PLM, or adjacent industries
• Familiarity with enterprise deployment constraints
• Published work or open-source contributions in agentic AI systems
• Experience building or contributing to public benchmarks for AI agents

Benefits

• Equity participation in an early-stage, Series A company

Before you apply

• Visa sponsorship is not available for this role

About the company

clera is a well-funded, early-stage AI startup in the mechanical engineering software space. The company serves Fortune 100 hardware engineering customers.