- Clera
- London, Greater London
- Full-Time
- 32 days ago
Founding Engineer.
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Founding Engineer: our view in 3 lines...
- The Role:This role is for a backend engineer building an AI infrastructure platform that connects applications to large language model providers.
- The Person:The person will design and build backend services, evolve the LLM gateway, make architecture decisions, work with databases and caches, and contribute to infrastructure on Kubernetes.
- Requirements:The ideal candidate has 5+ years of backend development experience, strong hands-on expertise in Go, deep understanding of concurrency, and experience designing and operating microservices architectures, API gateways, SQL databases, distributed caches, and Kubernetes.
About the role
About the Role
This is a founding engineering role at an early-stage AI infrastructure company building a production-grade gateway that sits between applications and hundreds of large language model providers. You'll work directly with the founders to shape the technical direction of a platform that powers reliability, observability, and cost optimisation for AI-first teams. This is a high-ownership, high-impact position for someone who thinks like a founder.
What You'll Do
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Design and build core backend services within a pragmatic microservices architecture, primarily in Go.
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Evolve and maintain the LLM gateway, including routing, failover, load balancing, and observability features.
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Make architectural decisions that balance scalability, performance, and the speed demands of an early-stage product.
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Select and work with a variety of SQL databases and distributed caches, choosing the right tool for each problem.
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Contribute to infrastructure running on Kubernetes, and help redefine the stack as the product scales.
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Collaborate closely with founders to influence product direction and technical strategy.
What We're Looking For
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5+ years of backend development experience, with strong hands-on expertise in Go (Golang).
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Deep understanding of concurrency and practical experience with concurrent programming patterns.
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Experience designing and operating microservices architectures, including API gateways.
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Comfort working with multiple database types and distributed caching solutions, and the judgment to choose between them.
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Ability to design architectures that are both pragmatic for the current stage and scalable for the future.
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A track record of independently learning new technologies and frameworks.
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Startup or high-growth environment mindset — strong ownership, bias for action, and comfort with ambiguity.
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Right to work in the United Kingdom; visa sponsorship is not available for this role.
Compensation & Benefits
Competitive total compensation package with significant equity. Visa sponsorship is not available.
Location
On-site in London, United Kingdom.
