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Staff Software Engineer

CLEAR
New York City, United Statesfull_timeVerifiedPosted 17 Aug 2026
💰 $500,000/yr($325,000/yr$500,000/yr)

About the role

CLEAR is building THE secure identity company of the future. Our mission is to make experiences safer and easier—physically and digitally. With more than 43 million Members and a growing network of partners across the world, CLEAR's secure identity platform is transforming the way people live, work, and travel. Whether it’s at the airport, stadium, or throughout your everyday life, CLEAR unlocks the magic of frictionless experiences.

We're looking for Staff Software Engineers to help build the next generation of CLEAR's identity platform. Beyond verifying identity, we're creating a secure, networked digital identity that enables seamless experiences across travel, enterprise, healthcare, financial services, and beyond.

As a Staff Software Engineer, you'll own complex technical problems from design through deployment, partnering closely with Product, Design, Security, and Operations to deliver reliable, scalable solutions. We're looking for engineers with a strong builder mindset who thrive in ambiguity, take ownership, and enjoy turning ideas into production systems.

Level and team matching (open roles across the three pillars that make up Technology at CLEAR: Core Identity, CLEAR1, and CLEAR Travel) will occur towards the end of our interview process. Tech stack overview: Java / Python / React / Typescript

What Sets Staff Engineers Apart

Staff Engineers at CLEAR operate beyond a single team. They influence technical strategy across multiple products, shape architectural direction, identify opportunities before they become problems, and drive alignment across organizations. They are trusted partners to Engineering and Product leadership, consistently delivering high-impact technical solutions while developing the engineers around them and raising the quality of execution across the organization.

What you’ll do:

  • Design, build, test, and deploy scalable full-stack applications that power CLEAR's identity platform.
  • Own projects end-to-end from technical discovery and architecture through implementation, rollout, and operational support.
  • Partner closely with Product, Design, Data, Security, and Operations to translate business problems into simple, scalable technical solutions.
  • Drive technical direction and engineering best practices across teams by identifying architectural opportunities, reducing technical debt, and improving platform scalability.
  • Contribute to architectural decisions and continuously improve the scalability, security, and maintainability of our platform.
  • Mentor teammates through thoughtful code reviews, technical collaboration, and sharing engineering best practices.
  • Take ownership beyond implementation, proactively identifying opportunities, influencing roadmaps, and driving initiatives that create meaningful business impact.

What you’re great at:

  • 9+ years of professional full-stack software engineering experience building production applications using technologies such as Java, Python, React, and/or TypeScript.
  • Strong technical fundamentals across distributed systems, APIs, cloud infrastructure, and modern software architecture.
  • Experience building and operating cloud-native applications using AWS and technologies such as Docker, Kubernetes, GitHub, and CI/CD pipelines.
  • A demonstrated history of owning complex, cross-functional projects and driving them from idea to production with a bias for action.
  • Excellent communication skills with the ability to explain technical concepts and influence both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
  • Comfortable operating in ambiguous environments, making thoughtful tradeoffs, and independently driving work forward.
  • A collaborative mindset with a passion for mentoring others, continuously improving engineering practices, and building products that deliver measurable customer and business impact.

Our process:

We keep a swift process with shorter timelines that make the best use of everyone’s time.  Our process is usually completed in about 3 weeks.  Here’s what you can expect: 

Recruiter Call → Zoom Technical Screen → Onsite Panel Interviews → Final Manager Conversations → Offer

How You’ll be Rewarded:

At CLEAR, we help YOU move forward - because when you’re at your best

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Company

CLEAR

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