AI Engineer

Clera, an innovative early-stage startup in the AI-powered talent acquisition sector, is seeking highly skilled and motivated AI Engineers to join their dynamic team. This is a remote position, offering a unique opportunity to contribute directly to the core challenges of scaling backend infrastructure and refining the sophisticated LLM and AI agent flows that define their product. As an early member of a small, high-agency engineering team, your contributions will have an immediate and significant impact on platform performance and the overall user experience. Clera is looking for 1-2 exceptionally talented individuals who are driven by the prospect of building robust, production-ready AI systems within a fast-paced startup environment.

About the role

This position presents a compelling opportunity for engineers eager to take on significant responsibility. You will be instrumental in ensuring the robustness and scalability of Clera's backend infrastructure. This involves not only designing and building new services and systems but also maintaining and optimising existing ones to handle increasing demands reliably. A core aspect of the role will be the meticulous tuning and iteration of large language model (LLM) integrations and AI agent orchestration pipelines. The goal is to enhance their reliability, efficiency, and the quality of their outputs, ensuring Clera's AI solutions remain at the cutting edge. Collaboration is key in this environment; you will work closely with a fast-moving team to deliver meaningful updates frequently. Furthermore, as an early member, you will play a vital role in shaping the engineering culture and defining the technical trajectory of the company.

The AI Engineer role at Clera is multifaceted, demanding a proactive and ownership-driven approach. Key responsibilities include:

• **Backend Scalability Ownership:** Taking full responsibility for the design, development, and maintenance of backend services and systems. This includes ensuring they can perform reliably under significant load and scale effectively as the user base grows.
• **LLM and AI Agent Optimisation:** Dedicating efforts to fine-tuning and iterating on LLM integrations and AI agent orchestration workflows. This involves a deep dive into improving their performance, reducing latency, and enhancing the accuracy and relevance of their generated outputs.
• **Collaborative Development:** Working in close partnership with a small, agile engineering team. The emphasis will be on shipping impactful code and features regularly, contributing to a continuous delivery cycle.
• **Engineering Culture Contribution:** Actively participating in the formation of Clera's engineering culture and contributing to strategic decisions regarding technical direction, leveraging your experience to guide the team.

What they're looking for

Clera is seeking candidates with a strong foundation in backend software engineering and a proven track record of working with AI systems in production. Essential qualifications and attributes include:

• **Extensive Backend Experience:** A minimum of 5 years of experience in backend software engineering, with a demonstrable history of delivering scalable production systems. Candidates should possess a deep understanding of backend engineering principles and have practical experience in building systems that can handle substantial traffic.
• **LLM and AI Agent Proficiency:** Hands-on experience integrating LLMs and optimising AI agent workflows within live production environments is crucial. This includes a nuanced understanding of the challenges associated with LLM reliability and performance tuning.
• **Startup Mindset:** Comfort with ambiguity and a proactive approach to problem-solving are highly valued. Candidates should be comfortable taking end-to-end ownership of their work and possess the drive to move quickly without requiring constant direction.
• **Production AI Feature Delivery:** Practical experience in shipping AI-driven features to production environments is a significant advantage. This demonstrates an understanding of the real-world complexities of deploying and managing AI solutions.

For South African professionals, roles involving AI engineering and backend scalability often come with competitive remuneration, reflecting the specialised skills required. While specific figures vary widely based on experience and the company's funding stage, established tech firms and successful startups in South Africa might offer salaries in the R50,000 to R100,000+ per month range for senior positions. Companies in sectors like fintech, e-commerce, and emerging AI-focused businesses are typically the primary employers. Career progression in this field often leads to senior engineering roles, AI architecture positions, or even management of engineering teams.

• Based in Stockholm, or legally eligible to work and willing to relocate to Stockholm — no visa sponsorship available.
• 5+ years of backend software engineering experience delivering scalable production systems.
• Hands-on experience integrating LLMs and optimizing AI agent workflows in live production environments.
• Strong backend engineering fundamentals — you've built systems that scale and you've felt the pain of when they don't.
• Practical experience shipping AI-driven features in production; you understand the nuances of LLM reliability and performance tuning.
• Startup experience — you're comfortable with ambiguity, own your work end-to-end, and move fast without waiting for permission.