Senior Software Engineer
San Francisco, CA

Job Description

Description

Clara Labs is establishing a new class of virtual assistant that understands you like a person, but operates at the scale, speed, and persistence of a machine. To do this, we mix intelligent automation software with remote human contractors to form an efficient, distributed remote-knowledge-work service.

Our initial focus is on scheduling meetings via email. We believe that by reducing anxieties caused by cluttered inboxes, complex calendars, and juggling preferences and calendars, customers can have more time to focus on what matters.

We aim to make automated assistants a truly everyday productivity tool. Our approach differs from traditional machine assistants (think: Siri) in our deep focus on conversation quality and human-like product flexibility. We build technology to maximize user experience, without constraining ourselves to the latest technology bandwagon. As a result, we've been delivering a highly reliable and flexible natural language interface from day one.

You can read a little bit more about us here:

* http://www.fastcodesign.com/3052646/innovation-by-design/life-with-my-robot-secretary
* https://www.forbes.com/sites/clareoconnor/2017/04/18/clara-labs-wants-to-save-your-from-your-inbox-with-cyborg-assistants/#6c5c694974ca

Engineering at Clara

Shipping early and often leads to better products.

As an example, we scheduled thousands of meetings for our first customers manually before building any software. We've found that persistent iteration leads to tighter feedback loops between our customers, our contractors, and our product development team.

Ownership enables contributors to do their best work.

Critical thinking and invention are key virtues of each team member. Individuals identify problems and solutions, and are responsible for driving projects to completion.

We're taking on problems that are previously unsolved: building large-scale human-machine learning hybrid systems. Here are a few types of problems engineers at Clara work on:

* Formulating "bite-sized" tasks and distributing real-time work load across a network of international human contractors.
* New user interfaces for combining machine learning and human expertise to process message-based tasks; we've built a "mail client" and "calendar client" like no other.
* Engineering underlying services (such as messaging protocols, calendaring servers, real-time work dispatching) to come together reliably and support the items above.

Role

You will help to conceive of, build, and maintain features of the Clara platform. Some example core feature areas we work on today are: prediction-driven scheduling UI, calendar and preference modeling, load-balanced contractor task distribution, and advanced payment allocation algorithms.

We're looking for folks with prior experience building products and fostering team collaboration. In this role, you will jump in as tech lead on projects and help guide architectural designs. You will also play a key part role in team development: mentoring and enabling team members, helping to introduce and guide best practices.

You should have experience in at least one of the following and familiarity across the full stack:

* Systems Engineering: e.g., real time & distributed system architecture.
* Data Modeling: e.g., recurrence based data modeling, expert-systems modeling.
* Protocols & API Integrations: e.g.,messaging protocols (e-mail, SMS), calendaring protocols, & third party API integrations.

Additionally, we're looking for engineers that are customer focused, collaborative, and excited to pursue difficult, often loosely defined problems.

Nice to have(s):

* Experience with React/Redux.
* Experience with Python, Flask, SQLAlchemy, and AWS.

Optionally with your resume:

* A cover letter explaining why you think you are a great match for Clara.
* A link to a Github repo of yours.
* Tell us about one of your interesting projects!

We are an equal opportunity employer and value diversity at our company. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status.