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About the Role
As a founding engineer on a small conversational AI team, you will own the real-time voice layer, from incoming speech through AI reasoning to spoken responses. You will help make natural, responsive voice interactions work reliably in production, with a focus on end-to-end latency.
What You'll Do
Build and own streaming speech-to-text, LLM turn-taking, text-to-speech, and telephony or WebRTC transport.
Measure and reduce latency, targeting first audio under 800 milliseconds on real calls.
Build an evaluation harness from recorded calls, transcripts, and scored turns to detect regressions and guide product decisions.
Compare voice providers and models through evidence-based testing, and make changes based on results.
Instrument production systems for turn latency, transcription confidence, drop-offs, and cost per minute.
Work directly with founders and make technical decisions in a fast-moving team.
What We're Looking For
At least 5 years building production software, including 2 or more years shipping voice, speech, or real-time audio systems.
Experience building and shipping end-to-end real-time voice pipelines, including streaming speech recognition, LLM turn-taking, speech synthesis, and telephony or WebRTC.
Strong Python or TypeScript skills and comfort working in both.
Hands-on experience with an audio stack such as LiveKit, Pipecat, Vapi, Twilio Media Streams, Daily, or a custom WebSocket implementation.
Experience debugging audio at the frame level, including sample rates, codecs, jitter, and voice activity detection thresholds.
Experience building LLM evaluation harnesses, optimizing latency against real-world targets, and using evaluation results to make product decisions.
Clear written English for asynchronous communication. Experience with speech model serving or fine-tuning, SIP, telephony, or LLM orchestration frameworks is a plus.
Compensation & Benefits
Compensation is $96,000 USD annually, regardless of location. Visa sponsorship is not available.
Location Fully remote, anywhere in the world. Core team overlap is 13:00 to 17:00 UTC.