Software Engineer, Voice Agents & AI (Senior or Staff Level)
Deepgram is hiring a Software Engineer, Voice Agents & AI (Senior or Staff Level) in San Francisco, United States. It pays $197k-$307k a year and Level rates it ; you can apply on Deepgram.
Level's read on this job
- Level rates this software engineer role Builds AI ●●●●: the job is building AI systems.
- Pay on this posting starts 17% higher than the typical software engineer posting on Level.
- The posting mentions Sierra, Decagon and Speech To Text among its tools and skills.
- Level classes it as a senior role.
- Deepgram has 81 other open roles on Level.
AI in this role
Build voice agents, real-time APIs, and robust ASR systems for the enterprise Voice AI economy.
Deepgram is the leading platform underpinning the emerging trillion-dollar Voice AI economy, providing real-time APIs for speech-to-text (STT), text-to-speech (TTS), and building production-grade voice agents at scale. More than 200,000 developers and 1,300+ organizations build voice offerings that are ‘Powered by Deepgram’, including Twilio, Cloudflare, Sierra, Decagon, Vapi, Daily, Cresta, Granola, and Jack in the Box. Deepgram’s voice-native foundation models are accessed through cloud APIs or as self-hosted and on-premises software, with unmatched accuracy, low latency, and cost efficiency. Backed by a recent Series C led by leading global investors and strategic partners, Deepgram has processed over 50,000 years of audio and transcribed more than 1 trillion words. There is no organization in the world that understands voice better than Deepgram.
Company Operating RhythmAt Deepgram, we expect an AI-first mindset—AI use and comfort aren’t optional, they’re core to how we operate, innovate, and measure performance.
Every team member who works at Deepgram is expected to actively use and experiment with advanced AI tools, and even build your own into your everyday work. We measure how effectively AI is applied to deliver results, and consistent, creative use of the latest AI capabilities is key to success here. Candidates should be comfortable adopting new models and modes quickly, integrating AI into their workflows, and continuously pushing the boundaries of what these technologies can do.
Additionally, we move at the pace of AI. Change is rapid, and you can expect your day-to-day work to evolve just as quickly. This may not be the right role if you’re not excited to experiment, adapt, think on your feet, and learn constantly, or if you’re seeking something highly prescriptive with a traditional 9-to-5.
The Opportunity:
We are seeking a Software Engineer to join our Enterprise AI team, a new, vertically focused business unit dedicated to solving the toughest problems in the space, working alongside Deepgram’s core research teams.
We’ll be working directly with leading restaurant enterprises and leading restaurant technology partners to uncover and solve the highest-impact problems in the space. Early focus areas include:
Ultra-robust ASR in noisy, multi-mic environments
High-accuracy, menu-aware drive-thru and phone ordering agents
Real-time analytics and operational intelligence
Deeper, more reliable in-restaurant hardware integration
We are already partnering with several leading brands and will continue expanding these efforts
What You’ll Do
Design, develop, and maintain scalable, high-performance backend systems for our automated order-taking platform
Collaborate closely with our team to ensure the seamless integration of our backend with our ML models and client devices
Monitor and optimize the performance of our backend systems in production environments
Build and maintain integrations with 3rd party restaurant software systems like POS, loyalty, payment gateways, and customer data platforms
Implement best practices in system design, code quality, and testing to ensure a reliable, secure, and maintainable system
Optimize AI pipeline to improve performance in challenging audio environments, robustly handle ambiguous customer requests, and rapidly scale to new menus
Push the very boundaries of LLMs and voice AI technology to solve one of the technology industry’s historically elusive challenges
Run experiments to validate the product impact of new functionality
It’s Important To Us That You Have
Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field
4+ years of hands-on experience in developing, implementing, and maintaining backend infrastructure in production environments
Proven track record of building and deploying scalable, high-performance backend systems
Experience with cloud-based infrastructure and deployment technologies, such as AWS and API design
Excellent problem-solving skills and the ability to adapt to a rapidly evolving startup environment
Strong communication skills and the ability to work collaboratively with a team
Willingness to problem solve across our entire product
Ability to proactively recognize problems and identify solutions to those problems
Results oriented and care about the impact of your work
It Would Be Great if You Had
Experience working with audio
Experience taking a backend system from zero to one
Experience building and maintaining a system that integrates with many 3rd party APIs, particularly Point of Sale systems
Experience with Python, Kotlin, or Java
Experience with containerization tools, such as Docker and Kubernetes
Experience working in or alongside AI / ML
Notice: We're aware of individuals impersonating Deepgram recruiters. All legitimate Deepgram recruiting communication comes from an @deepgram.com email address. If you've received a message claiming to be Deepgram, please forward it to careers@deepgram.com.
How we rate this
Software Engineer, Voice Agents & AI (Senior or Staff Level) at Deepgram rates 90 out of 100 for how much of the daily work is AI. That makes it Builds AI (AI Level 4 of 4). The level is about AI in the job, not seniority.
Builds AI. The job is building AI systems.
- ●●●● Builds AI80 to 100
- ●●●○ Works on AI60 to 79
- ●●○○ Uses AI40 to 59
- ●○○○ Little AI0 to 39
Levels come from how often the tools, models and workflows of the role are named in the posting itself. Read the description and count the AI tools, models and workflows it names.
Prepare for this job
Built from this posting and from similar jobs on Level.
Skills and AI tools this role asks for
Also common in software engineer jobs at this level
Pay
- This job starts at
- $197k
- Typical software engineer job
- $168k
This posting starts 17% above the typical software engineer job. See software engineer jobs
Questions you could be asked
- What have you built with speech recognition or text-to-speech, and where did it break?
- Tell me about a project where voice ai was part of your work. What did you do?
- Tell me about a project where asr was part of your work. What did you do?
- Tell me about a project where machine learning was part of your work. What did you do?
- Tell me about a project where software engineering was part of your work. What did you do?
Adapt your resume
- List these exact terms on your resume: Speech, Voice AI, Asr, Machine learning, and Software Engineering. An applicant tracking system matches the wording, not the idea.
- Attach one line of real, concrete experience to at least one of them. A tool named with nothing behind it rarely survives a human read.
- Lead with what you built, trained or shipped. This role is judged on the AI system itself, not the tools around it.
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