Software Engineer - Applied AI

Deepgram
San Francisco, CA
On-site

Who this role is best for

Candidates with experience in building cloud-based backend services and a strong AI-first mindset will find this role in San Francisco, CA, ideal for those who thrive in a small, fast-paced team focused on solving complex voice AI challenges.

Best fit for

  • Candidates who have delivered production-grade voice AI solutions and are comfortable with rapid iteration and experimentation
    — “Ship production features in live voice agent products, such as drive-thru and phone ordering, within your first quarter.”
  • Individuals who can independently identify problems and take ownership of their resolution, including customer-facing responsibilities
    — “Own customer problems end to end: hear the issue, find the root cause, and get the fix into production.”
  • Engineers with a demonstrated ability to move quickly with AI-native tools without compromising quality
    — “Operates AI-native: you build with modern AI coding tools as your default way of working, not occasionally.”

Things to consider

  • The role requires in-person presence in San Francisco due to the team’s on-site work expectations.
    — “We’re a small team that works in person in San Francisco”
  • Candidates should be prepared to take on zero-to-one challenges with minimal guidance.
    — “Learns quickly and takes on unfamiliar parts of the stack with little ramp-up.”

How to stand out

  • Highlight past experience delivering end-to-end solutions from idea to production in your resume and interview responses.
    — “Has taken something from idea to production, at work or on your own time.”
  • Showcase your comfort with multiple languages, especially Kotlin, Python, and TypeScript.
    — “Comfortable working across languages. Our stack is mainly Kotlin and Python, with TypeScript on the front end.”
  • Demonstrate experience with model fine-tuning or adaptation, even if it's through personal projects.
    — “Hands-on experience training, fine-tuning, or adapting models, through work, research, or substantial projects.”
  • Include examples of identifying and solving problems independently, not just waiting for direction.
    — “Finds work instead of waiting for it: you recognize problems, propose solutions, and follow them through.”
Pace · Fast PacedCollaboration · HighAutonomy · MediumDecision Impact · Team

Derived from job-description analysis by Serendipath's career intelligence engine.

What success looks like

  • ship production features in live voice agent products
  • own customer problems end to end
Typical background
experience building and shipping backend services that run in production in the cloud

Skills & requirements

Required

Backend ServicesCloud DeploymentAI IntegrationVoice AI

Preferred

Self-service Fine-tuningModel AdaptationDomain-aware Voice Agents

Stack & domain

Backend ServicesCloudAISpeech-to-textText-to-speechFounder ExperienceEarly Startup EngineeringAi UseComfort With AiExperimentationAdaptabilityLearning ConstantlyVoice Ai

About the role

Original posting from Deepgram via Ashby

COMPANY OVERVIEW

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 RHYTHM

At 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.

Team Overview

The Applied AI team takes on the voice AI problems that don’t have off-the-shelf answers. We work directly with enterprise customers and technology partners, from conversational AI and customer experience platforms to restaurant brands, and much of the work is zero to one. Current focus areas include robust ASR in noisy outdoor environments, self-service fine-tuning and model adaptation, domain-aware voice agents for drive-thru and phone ordering, agent scoring and evaluation, real-time operational analytics, and on-site hardware integration. We’re a small team that works in person in San Francisco, ships to production quickly, and stays close to the customers we build for.

Key Goals

  • Ship production features in live voice agent products, such as drive-thru and phone ordering, within your first quarter.
  • Own customer problems end to end: hear the issue, find the root cause, and get the fix into production.
  • Help build reusable agent modules, like ordering and reservations, so new customers and industries launch faster.
  • Make agents more accurate on real-world menus and catalogs, keeping structured data consistent across hundreds of locations.
  • Contribute to fine-tuning and model adaptation so customers get accurate results on their own vocabulary and domains.
  • Spot problems across the product before anyone asks, then fix them or bring a proposed solution.
  • Run experiments that show whether new functionality improves outcomes for customers.

Minimum Skills, Knowledge & Capabilities

  • Experience building and shipping backend services that run in production in the cloud.
  • Operates AI-native: you build with modern AI coding tools as your default way of working, not occasionally, and use them to move fast without lowering the quality bar.
  • Learns quickly and takes on unfamiliar parts of the stack with little ramp-up.
  • Finds work instead of waiting for it: you recognize problems, propose solutions, and follow them through.
  • Has taken something from idea to production, at work or on your own time.
  • Communicates clearly with teammates and is comfortable working directly with customers.
  • Builds for the customer’s outcome, with a high bar for quality and no over-engineering.
  • Comfortable working across languages. Our stack is mainly Kotlin and Python, with TypeScript on the front end.

Preferred Qualifications (nice-to-have)

  • Hands-on experience training, fine-tuning, or adapting models, through work, research, or substantial projects.
  • Experience building evaluation or scoring for models or agents.
  • Experience with audio, speech-to-text, or text-to-speech.
  • Experience as a founder or early startup engineer, or taking a system from zero to one.
  • Typically 2+ years of engineering experience, or equivalent demonstrated experience.

Notice: We're aware of individuals impersonating Deepgram recruiters. All legitimate Deepgram recruiting communication comes from an @deepgram.com http://deepgram.com email address. If you've received a message claiming to be Deepgram, please forward it to careers@deepgram.com.

Source: Deepgram careers (Ashby)

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