Software Engineer - Backend

Our vision is to build the next-generation platform for fast, easy creation of audio and video content, using a revolutionary way to edit powered by cutting-edge AI. We are looking for senior backend engineers to help design and evolve our product and server architecture, build a cutting-edge AI training and delivery pipeline, and curate a high productivity development platform.

We are a young company with a product that has started achieving rapid growth, and so these engineers will be making key technical choices as our systems scale beyond our current limitations. We are looking for those with a keen architectural sense, who choose practical technologies and make smart bets that increase the leverage of our small teams rather than chase the latest trends, and who aren't afraid to dive deep into the weeds to understand and fix thorny technical problems.

As a senior member of the engineering team you'll play an integral role in the following:

Introducing real-time collaborative workflows to audio/video production, where individual projects can be in the tens or hundreds of gigabytes Pioneering the use of web technologies to deliver a high-performance professional creative tool that's traditionally been the domain of native desktop applications Designing a world-class AI training and inference architecture to take cutting edge academic research to production Scaling our storage infrastructure and distributed systems to find the right balance between durability, throughput, and availability Evolving our development, observability, and operations infrastructure to support a small, rapidly growing engineering team with an even faster growing user base Requirements 7+ years of professional software development experience Strong CS fundamentals and experience building and scaling distributed systems Fluency with developing and operating services running on Linux and cloud infrastructure (we use Heroku, AWS, and GCP) Strong written and verbal communication Self-awareness of strengths and gaps Constant drive to learn and improve Experience mentoring engineers, including code reviews, architecture discussions, and leadership skills

About Descript Descript is building the next generation of tools for communicating with video and audio. We are a team of 40 (planning to double in 2021) — with a proven CEO and the backing of some of the world's greatest investors (Andreessen Horowitz, Redpoint Ventures, Spark Capital). Descript HQ is in San Francisco, and our AI research team, Lyrebird, is based in Montreal.

Descript is the special company that's in possession of both product market fit and the raw materials (passionate user community, great product, large market) for growth, but is still early enough that each new employee has a measurable influence on the direction of the company.

As a small startup, Descript relies on employees who thrive in an environment where they are regularly called upon to translate high level goals into day-to-day priorities, and are regularly presented with technical and business challenges that extend beyond their comfort zone.

Benefits include a generous healthcare package, catered lunches, and unlimited vacation time. We currently have offices in San Francisco and Montreal, and are open to folks working between PST and EST time zones. Whether you love WFH or can’t wait to get back to being in person, we're interested in offering an environment that works for you.

Descript is an equal opportunity workplace—we are dedicated to equal employment opportunities regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, gender identity, or Veteran status. We believe in actively building a team rich in diverse backgrounds, experiences, and opinions to better allow our employees, products, and community to thrive.