Otter.aiPosted 17mo ago

Staff Software Engineer, Backend (Product)

Staff Software Engineer, Backend (Product) at Otter.ai scores 66 out of 100 on AI centrality, which makes it AI Level 3 of 4 (Works on AI) on this board. The level measures how much of the work is AI, not seniority.

Mountain View, CAlead$210k-$275k

AI in this role

rag

The Opportunity

We’re building the next generation of AI-native product experiences, where conversations turn directly into outcomes. As a Staff Software Engineer on our Product teams, you’ll define how these capabilities are translated into scalable systems and cohesive product experiences.
You’ll operate across the full lifecycle of AI-driven features—from data ingestion and model orchestration to output structuring and delivery into user-facing product surfaces—but at a systems level. This includes shaping the architecture behind generation pipelines, defining how AI outputs are structured and persisted, and ensuring these systems are reliable, performant, and adaptable as both product requirements and underlying models evolve.
This role goes beyond individual features. You’ll drive technical direction across product areas, aligning product, AI, and infrastructure teams on how to build AI-native systems that scale. You’ll help define patterns for how we evaluate, iterate on, and continuously improve AI-driven experiences, turning ambiguous opportunities into clear systems and execution plans.
You’ll partner closely with product, design, and AI teams to identify high-leverage opportunities, prototype new approaches, and guide them into production—shaping both the product experience and the underlying systems that power it.

Your Impact

Define system architecture for AI-native product surfaces
Design foundational systems (generation pipelines, data models, evaluation frameworks) that power multiple product areas.
Drive cross-team technical strategy
Lead initiatives that span product, AI, and infrastructure teams, ensuring alignment on architecture and execution.
Establish best practices for AI product engineering
Set standards for how we build with AI—covering areas like evaluation, reliability, iteration loops, and system design.
Translate ambiguity into scalable systems and product direction
Take loosely defined opportunities and turn them into clear technical approaches and execution plans.
Raise the bar across the organization
Influence engineering quality, system design, and product thinking beyond your immediate team.
Shape how AI accelerates engineering velocity
Drive adoption and best practices for AI-assisted development, improving how teams design, build, and iterate on product.

We're looking for someone who

Has 10+ years of experience building and scaling complex systems
Has a strong track record of owning technical and product direction for large or ambiguous problem spaces
Demonstrates deep expertise in system design, especially in data-intensive or distributed systems
Has experience leading cross-team initiatives and influencing without direct authority
Brings strong product intuition and can balance user experience, system constraints, and business impact
Is comfortable operating at a high level of ambiguity and defining both the problem and the solution

Nice to haves

Experience building or experimenting with LLM-powered features (prompting, evaluation, RAG, etc.)
Experience designing systems that balance latency, cost, and quality
Exposure to user feedback loops, experimentation, or evaluation frameworks

About Otter.ai

We are in the business of shaping the future of work. Our mission is to make conversations more valuable.

With over 1B meetings transcribed, Otter.ai is the world’s leading tool for meeting transcription, summarization, and collaboration. Using artificial intelligence, Otter generates real-time automated meeting notes, summaries, and other insights from in-person and virtual meetings - turning meetings into accessible, collaborative, and actionable data that can be shared across teams and organizations. The company is backed by early investors in Google, DeepMind, Zoom, and Tesla.

Otter.ai is an equal opportunity employer. We proudly celebrate diversity and are committed to building an inclusive and accessible workplace. We provide reasonable accommodations for qualified applicants throughout the hiring process.

Accessibility & Accommodations

Otter.ai is committed to providing reasonable accommodations for candidates with disabilities in our hiring process. If you need assistance or an accommodation during any stage of the recruitment process, please contact hr@otter.ai at least 3 business days before your interview.

*Otter.ai does not accept unsolicited resumes from 3rd party recruitment agencies without a written agreement in place for permanent placements. Any resume or other candidate information submitted outside of established candidate submission guidelines (including through our website or via email to any Otter.ai employee) and without a written agreement otherwise will be deemed to be our sole property, and no fee will be paid should we hire the candidate.

Salary range

Salary Range: $210,000 to $275,000 USD per year.

This salary range represents the low and high end of the estimated salary range for this position. The actual base salary offered for the role is dependent on several factors. Our base salary is just one component of a comprehensive total rewards package.

#LI-Hybrid

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Skills and AI tools this role asks for

Rag

Questions you could be asked

How would you design a retrieval step so the model answers from real data instead of guessing?
Describe a typical day in a role like this one: which parts run through AI directly?
If you removed AI from this role, what would be left, and how do you decide what still needs a human?

Adapt your resume

List these exact terms on your resume: Rag. 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.
Show where AI is part of your daily process, not a one-off project — this role expects it to be a running habit.

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