Founding Engineer (Potential CTO)

Clera•San Francisco, CA

1d•Onsite

About The Position

A well-funded early-stage healthtech startup focused on AI-powered nervous system training and biofeedback therapy is seeking a Founding Engineer with the potential to grow into the CTO role. You will be the second technical voice at the company, owning the full technical direction and turning a bold product vision into a production-quality AI mobile experience. This is a foundational, high-ownership role central to the company's trajectory for the next decade. The product is a science-backed, AI-guided coaching platform that uses biosignals (HRV, breath, motion, PPG) to help users with chronic conditions repair their autonomic nervous system — no wearable required. You'll architect and ship the first end-to-end AI experience, define the engineering culture, and set the stack that scales with the company.

Requirements

Production experience shipping and operating Claude or other frontier models, including prompts, tool use, and evaluation.
Ability and willingness to work in-person in New York, San Francisco, or Montreal.
3+ years in mobile/full-stack engineering with proven 0→1 consumer mobile app delivery to real users.
Deep fluency in React Native with full ownership of the mobile lifecycle (build, release, debug, monitor, iterate).
Experience with AI-native infrastructure where AI is integrated across layers, not bolted on.
Backend development experience in Node.js or Python with PostgreSQL and modern infra (Vercel, Fly, Render, or similar).
Ability to move across the stack — frontend, backend, infra, AI — with minimal handholding.
Experience with HealthKit, wearable APIs, or biosignal data (HRV, PPG, motion) in real time.
Founder mindset with prior first-engineer or early-stage startup experience and comfort making hard tradeoffs.

Nice To Haves

Experience building AI-powered testing or evaluation pipelines.
Background or deep interest in nervous system science, somatics, neuroscience, or trauma research.
Prior experience as the first engineer at a startup.

Responsibilities

Own technical direction and execution as the founding engineer, acting as a true technical co-founder.
Ship the AI coaching product v1 end-to-end — from React Native app to frontier model inference and wearable integrations.
Architect and build an AI nervous system training coach, including model design, prompt engineering, tool use, and evaluation pipelines.
Translate biosignals (HRV, breath, motion, PPG) into a real-time, personalized coaching layer.
Build AI-powered QA and testing pipelines to enable safe, fast daily shipping.
Own full-stack decisions across frontend, backend, infrastructure, and AI-native layers.
Integrate iOS/HealthKit and wearable platforms (Apple Watch, Oura, Whoop, EEG headbands).
Collaborate closely with the founding team on-site.