About the role
Staff engineers in Consulting lead zero-to-one builds from the first commit to the first paying customer. They set the technical direction for a small team, choose the stack, define the boundaries and decide what to leave out, then stay close enough to the code to notice when the plan is drifting from what is needed.
A staff role here is a multiplier across several engagements. The engineer sets the bar for design reviews, mentors the forward deployed engineers on the team and takes problems that no single client team can solve alone. Lessons from each build flow back into Clexerl's ventures, and the engineer is expected to say when a client should not build the thing at all.
What you’ll do
- Own the technical plan for a zero-to-one build, including architecture, stack choices and a realistic delivery schedule.
- Write and review the core services, keeping the codebase small, tested and easy for the client to take over.
- Set engineering standards for the engagement, covering code review, testing, observability and release practice.
- Mentor engineers on the team, and make their designs better through written feedback rather than takeovers.
- Decide when to cut scope, and explain the trade-off to the client in terms of time, cost and risk.
- Lead incident response for live systems, and write post-mortems that name causes and changes rather than people.
What you’ll bring
- Experience as a senior or staff engineer who has built and launched new products from scratch.
- Deep knowledge of at least one backend language and its ecosystem, plus strong frontend fundamentals.
- A track record of making technical decisions under uncertainty, and of reversing them when the evidence changed.
- Experience mentoring engineers, and a clear view of what good feedback looks like in a code review.
- Ability to talk with founders about product risk and with engineers about implementation detail, in the same meeting.
Nice to have
- Experience with startup or venture-backed product work, including fast prototyping and early customer contact.
- Background in technical due diligence, architecture reviews or code audits.
- Familiarity with cloud-native deployment, managed databases and the operational cost of each choice.
- Experience building for small teams with limited operational headcount.
Work you might take on
- 01
Lead the first six weeks of a zero-to-one build, delivering a tested prototype that a pilot customer can use.
- 02
Define the service boundaries for a new product, and write the decision record that justifies each one.
- 03
Set up a release pipeline with feature flags, staged rollout and rollback, ready for a client's first production users.
- 04
Run a code review program for a small engineering team, with templates, expectations and a monthly quality review.
Compensation
$240K – $360K
The US base salary range for this role. Every offer also includes equity in Clexerl and, when it spins out, in the venture you help build. We tell you the reasoning behind your number.
Benefits
Health, fully covered
Medical, dental and vision for you and your dependants, premiums paid in full.
Two kinds of equity
Equity in Clexerl, plus a stake in the venture you help build when it spins out.
22 weeks parental leave
Fully paid, for every parent, however your family arrives.
Rest that sticks
Flexible time off with a four-week minimum we actually check on, plus a company-wide week in December.
Learning and compute
A yearly budget for courses, conferences and books, and compute credits for side projects.
401(k) with a 4% match
Matched from your first paycheque and vested immediately.
How we hire
Apply 5 minutes
Send links to what you have built and a few lines on why this role. No cover letter needed.
Intro call 30 minutes
A conversation with the hiring manager about the work, the team and what you want next.
Work sample 2–4 hours
A paid take-home or a pairing session on a real-shaped problem. You pick the format.
Studio day One day
Meet the team, go deep on your work and ours. Remote or in person.
Offer Within 5 days
A written offer with the full range, the equity and the reasoning behind both.
Opens an email with a short template. Links beat résumés.