Applied AI Engineer

Why AssemblyAI

AssemblyAI builds the best-in-class Voice AI models powering the next generation of voice applications. Our models serve 600M+ inference calls monthly, process 1M+ hours of audio daily, and power 2 billion+ end-user experiences. The Voice AI space is at an inflection point; we're looking for folks truly excited to join a small team and help define the future of the industry.

We are one of the most capital-efficient AI companies on the planet - with under 100 people generating roughly $500K ARR per employee, we sit among the top 5 most revenue-dense teams within the fastest-growing AI companies today. That's not an accident; it's a deliberate choice to stay lean, move fast, and give every person on the team outsized ownership and impact. With thousands of customers including Granola, Fireflies, Figure AI, and CallRail, the company has real scale - processing over 2 million hours of audio daily and handling more than 1 million API calls every day. This is a rare growth-stage opportunity where the business is proven and the trajectory is steep, but the team is still small enough that your fingerprints are on everything.

If you've ever felt buried under layers of bureaucracy, starved of real ownership, or frustrated watching your work disappear into a slow-moving org, AssemblyAI is built differently. The company operates as a true meritocracy, with no heavy planning or approval processes and no gatekeeping on the tools or information you need. For anyone who genuinely cares about voice AI, not as a trend to chase, but as a technology to build, this is the place where the most interesting problems at the most interesting scale are being solved by a team small enough that you'll actually know everyone's name.

We're committed to creating a space where our employees can bring their full selves to work and have equal opportunity to succeed. No matter your race, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, religion, origin, ability, age, veteran status, if joining this mission speaks to you, we encourage you to apply!

About the Role:

We're looking for an Applied AI Engineer to join our team at the intersection of cutting-edge AI research and real-world customer applications. This is a highly dynamic, customer-facing technical role where you'll build demos, troubleshoot production issues, and help customers implement our Speech AI models in creative and impactful ways.

You'll be working directly with developers and technical teams at companies ranging from early-stage startups to enterprise organizations. Your days will involve rapid context-switching between building prototypes for new use cases, debugging urgent customer issues, and collaborating with our Sales, Success, Engineering, Product, and Research teams to ensure customers succeed with our platform.

This role requires strong technical skills, excellent communication abilities, and the creativity to solve novel problems under time pressure. You'll be empowered to use AI tools and modern development practices to deliver solutions quickly and effectively.

What You'll Do:

Customer-Facing Technical Work (60%)

• Guide customers through their entire product journey—from initial implementation and technical onboarding, through development and testing, all the way to production deployment. Continue to provide support post-launch to ensure their implementation is performing optimally and meeting their business objectives
• Build custom demos and prototypes that showcase how AssemblyAI's models can solve specific customer use cases
• Lead technical discovery sessions with prospects and customers to understand their requirements and design optimal implementations
• Assist with competitive evaluations by providing benchmarks, designing fair comparison tests, and helping customers evaluate our models against alternatives. Work closely with customers to ensure they have the data and support needed to make informed decisions
• Troubleshoot production issues for customers using our streaming and async APIs, sometimes requiring you to debug code in languages you may not use daily (Java, Go, Ruby, etc.)
• Provide technical guidance on architecture, scaling, data privacy, and best practices for integrating our APIs
• Create proofs-of-concept that demonstrate the "art of the possible" with Speech AI
• Travel to customer sites for technical workshops, implementation support, and relationship building with key accounts

Internal Collaboration & Product Influence (30%)

• Serve as the voice of the customer to our Product and Research teams—test and dogfood new products and features before they reach customers, providing feedback from a practitioner's perspective. Advocate for improvements and new capabilities based on real-world use cases you encounter, ensuring our roadmap aligns with customer needs
• Contribute to documentation, guides, and example code that help developers integrate our APIs more effectively
• Identify patterns in customer issues and work with Engineering to address root causes (SDK improvements, better error messages, new features)
• Collaborate with Sales and Success teams to ensure smooth handoffs and consistent customer experience
• Participate in team off-sites to align on strategy, share learnings, and build team cohesion

Innovation & Thought Leadership (10%)

• Stay current on AI/ML developments, particularly in speech recognition, NLP, and audio processing
• Experiment with new use cases and applications of our models
• Build and maintain an open-source repository of demos, integrations, and reference implementations
• Represent AssemblyAI at conferences and industry events, delivering talks or running workshops when appropriate

What You'll Need:

Required

• Located in or willing to relocate to New York City or San Francisco
• 4+ years of customer-facing experience in highly technical environments, requiring strong software engineering skills
• Strong programming skills in Python and/or TypeScript/JavaScript, with the ability to read and debug code in other languages
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills—you'll be writing customer emails, internal documentation, and technical guides regularly
• Experience with web APIs, WebSockets, and real-time data streaming
• Understanding of audio fundamentals (sample rates, encoding formats, codecs) or willingness to learn quickly
• Ability to leverage AI tools creatively to move quickly—proficiency with tools like Claude, Cursor, Windsurf, or similar AI-assisted development tools to accelerate prototyping, debugging, and problem-solving
• Problem-solving mindset—you can debug unfamiliar codebases, identify root causes, and propose creative solutions
• Comfort with ambiguity and fast-paced work—you'll often be the first line of defense on novel problems
• Ability and willingness to travel domestically and internationally as needed (approximately 10-25% of the time)

Preferred

• Experience in a startup or high-growth environment
• Understanding of cloud infrastructure (AWS, GCP, Azure) and deployment patterns
• Experience building prototypes or MVPs quickly
• Public speaking or conference presentation experience

What Makes You Stand Out

• You're independently driven and competitive—you take ownership of customer outcomes, push yourself to deliver exceptional results, and are motivated by the challenge of solving hard problems and winning customer trust
• You can balance technical depth with customer empathy—you understand when to dive into the details and when to step back and explain concepts simply
• You thrive under pressure and can context-switch between building a demo, debugging a production issue, and answering technical questions on a sales call
• You're resourceful and self-directed—you know when to use AI tools, when to consult documentation, and when to ask for help
• You have a "get it done" mentality and are comfortable wearing many hats
• You're genuinely curious about AI and excited to see how customers apply our models in unexpected ways
• You enjoy building relationships with customers and representing AssemblyAI in person
• You're excited about being part of a tech hub (NYC or SF) and leveraging proximity to customers and the AI community

Location & Travel Expectations

Primary Location: This role is designed for candidates based in New York City or San Francisco. While AssemblyAI is a remote-first company, these locations position you closer to:

• A high concentration of our customers and prospects
• Major AI/tech conferences and events
• Your team members and cross-functional collaborators

New York City Office: We