Clara is the leading spend management platform in Latin America. More than 40,000 businesses run on our corporate cards, bill pay, financing and B2B payments, and in 2025 the Financial Times named Clara the fastest-growing company in Latin America. We're ~400 people, backed by Kaszek, monashees, Coatue, DST Global, ICONIQ, General Catalyst and Goldman Sachs, among others.
We are looking for a Staff Engineer to provide senior individual-contributor technical leadership at Clara. This is an organization-level IC role: you shape architecture, raise engineering standards across pods, and multiply impact through design, code, and mentorship — not a people-manager position.
The RoleYou are a builder and a technical authority beyond a single pod. You still write production code regularly, but your scope is cross-team: systems that span services, shared platforms, and hard technical bets that unlock multiple product areas.
This is a builder's role first. You are expected to ship code, lead by example in reviews and design docs, and leave clearer systems behind you — not only facilitate meetings.
What You Own- Cross-team architecture — Drive system design for initiatives that cut across pods (APIs, data models, event flows, reliability patterns). Hold a high bar on coherence, operability, and long-term cost.
- Engineering excellence — Set and model standards for code quality, testing (TDD/BDD), observability, and secure design. Influence through RFCs, architecture reviews, and pairing — not through reporting lines.
- Technical strategy — Partner with Engineering Directors, Pod Leads, and Product on sequencing, tech debt, and platform investments. Make trade-offs explicit and documented.
- Mentorship & leveling-up — Grow Senior and Mid engineers via design reviews, deep pairing, and hiring signal. You provide strong input on technical fit; managers own career and performance outcomes.
- Incident and reliability leadership — Lead or co-lead response and remediation for high-severity incidents on systems you influence; drive durable fixes, not band-aids.
- Hands-on delivery — Author meaningful PRs. Staff at Clara is not an architecture-only title.
- 1:1s, performance ratings, compensation, or PIPs — those belong to Engineering Managers / Directors.
- Day-to-day sprint facilitation for a single pod (unless temporarily embedded); Pod Engineering Leads own pod execution rhythm.
- 8+ years of professional software engineering, including substantial time as a Senior / Lead IC on complex systems.
- Deep expertise in at least one of:
- Backend: Java (Spring / Spring Boot), microservices, scalable system design, PostgreSQL/MySQL and NoSQL data modeling, event-driven architectures (Kafka or similar), REST APIs, AWS, containers (Docker/Kubernetes).
- Frontend: Production React + TypeScript at scale, component architecture, performance, testing (Jest, RTL, Cypress/Playwright), build/CI tooling.
- Ability to work and reason full-stack even if your depth is on one side: read the whole path from data model to API to UI.
- Proven experience designing for high availability, security, and operability in production.
- Strong testing culture (unit, integration, contract) and familiarity with CI/CD (GitHub Actions).
- Track record of written technical design that non-authors can challenge and execute against.
- Demonstrated influence without formal authority — across teams and stakeholders.
- Clear communication of trade-offs to Product, Design, and leadership.
- Product mindset: you engage roadmaps and feasibility, not only tickets.
- Intellectual honesty: change direction when evidence demands it.
- Mentorship instincts; you leave teams stronger than you found them.
- Strong English; Spanish is a plus for LATAM collaboration.
- Experience in financial applications, payments, or regulated LATAM markets.
- Prior Staff / Principal / Staff-equivalent title, or org-wide Tech Lead scope.
- Platform or developer-experience investments (shared libraries, internal tools, AI-assisted engineering workflows).
- Deep AWS (EKS, RDS, MSK, etc.) or security posture work (auth, supply chain).
- A high talent-density team driven to make an impact in Latin America — low ego, high ownership.
- Competitive salary and stock options (ESOP) from day one.
- An annual learning budget and accelerated development paths.
- English is our working language, with Spanish and Portuguese every day.
- Clarity — Open and direct communication: we say what we mean and give context where it matters.
- Simplicity — If it can be simpler, it should be.
- Ownership — We own everything we do, end to end. When something needs to happen, we don't wait.
- Pride — We hold ourselves to a high standard, and it shows in what we deliver.
- ABC (Always Be Changing) — We adapt fast, embrace change, and keep learning.
- Inclusivity — Diverse ideas, stories and perspectives build a better Clara.
Claridians split their time between the office, customers and home. We don't set a minimum number of office days for most roles, but we expect you to spend time there naturally, and most days during your ramp-up or when your leader asks.
If you meet the must-haves, apply — the nice-to-haves are a bonus, not a requirement.
Skills Required
- 8+ years of professional software engineering experience
- Substantial experience as a Senior or Lead individual contributor on complex systems
- Deep expertise in backend technologies including Java, Spring or Spring Boot, microservices, scalable system design, relational and NoSQL data modeling, event-driven architectures, REST APIs, AWS, Docker, and Kubernetes
- Deep expertise in production React and TypeScript at scale, component architecture, performance, testing, and build or CI tooling
- Ability to reason across the full stack from data model to API to user interface
- Experience designing for high availability, security, and operability in production
- Strong unit, integration, and contract testing practices
- Familiarity with CI/CD and GitHub Actions
- Track record of written technical designs that teams can challenge and execute against
- Ability to influence across teams and stakeholders without formal authority
- Clear communication of technical trade-offs to Product, Design, and leadership
- Strong English
- Spanish language skills
- Experience in financial applications, payments, or regulated Latin American markets
- Prior Staff, Principal, Staff-equivalent, or organization-wide Technical Lead experience
- Experience with platform or developer-experience investments
- Deep AWS experience, including EKS, RDS, or MSK, or security posture work
Clara Compensation & Benefits Highlights
The following summarizes recurring compensation and benefits themes identified from responses generated by popular LLMs to common candidate questions about Clara and has not been reviewed or approved by Clara.
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Equity Value & Accessibility — Equity grants are emphasized across several descriptions, with stock options commonly included and in some instances available from day one. Feedback suggests this ownership component is a meaningful part of total rewards.
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Leave & Time Off Breadth — Time off offerings are portrayed as flexible, including references to flexible vacation and flexible time off policies. Feedback suggests this supports work–life balance for many roles.
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Wellbeing & Lifestyle Benefits — Wellness support is cited through mental‑health platforms, coaching and meditation programs, and monthly wellness reimbursements in some contexts. Feedback suggests these offerings complement core benefits where available.
Clara Insights
What We Do
Clara is the leading payment platform for companies in Latin America. Our end-to-end solution includes our locally-issued corporate cards, Bill Pay, crossborder payments, and our highly-rated software platform used by thousands of the most successful companies across the region. Clara is backed by top global and regional investors such as Coatue, DST Global, General Catalyst, monashees, Kaszek, Canary, A*, BoxGroup, SV Angel, GFC, Picus Capital, Avid Ventures, ICONIQ Growth, Goldman Sachs, and prominent angel investors. Driven by our six core values (Ownership, Pride, ABC, Simplicity, Clarity and Inclusivity) we’ve reached a unicorn valuation in record time, have been recognized as a Great Place to Work and as one of the most promising startups according to Linkedin’s ranking “Top Startups 2021”. We’re looking for the best talent worldwide to join our team and be part of this journey, so you can't afford to miss this chance! We are: * Shaping business finances in Latin America * Driven by our 6 core values * Proud of our inclusive and caring culture * Certified as a Great Place to Work and a Top LinkedIn Startup
