Staff Software Engineer

Senior Software EngineerLead/Director Software EngineerReporting To: Engineering Lead/ManagerPreferred Location: Marina del Rey, CA OR Brooklyn, New York (Onsite M-F)What You'll DoAt Flip, Senior Software Engineers are technical owners who design, build, and scale the systems that power our AI-driven voice platform. You will lead the development of high-impact features, architect scalable services, and own end-to-end pipelines that deliver low-latency, high-availability conversational experiences for our customers.You'll work deeply across product, data, infrastructure, and customer-facing systems—partnering closely with Product, Customer Success, and fellow engineers to shape technical direction, improve reliability, and push the platform forward.In this role, you will:Own the design, implementation, and evolution of core backend services and pipelines.Architect and optimize Python-based systems that integrate with external APIs, LLM platforms, and real-time voice services.Design and maintain scalable, fault-tolerant workflows for dialogue management, orchestration, and conversation flows.Build and optimize low-latency, high-throughput systems supporting millions of calls per week.Lead technical design discussions, propose architectural improvements, and influence long-term platform strategy.Set engineering best practices for code quality, testing, observability, and reliability.Conduct high-signal code reviews and mentor junior and mid-level engineers.Debug and resolve complex production issues across distributed services and third-party integrations.Partner directly with customers, product managers, and operations teams to translate business requirements into robust technical solutions.Who You Are — As an EngineerYou thrive in complex systems and can quickly ramp into large, production-grade Python codebases.You design systems, not just features, and consider scalability, reliability, observability, and maintainability from day one.You write clean, pythonic, testable, and maintainable code, and raise the quality bar across the team.You lead technical discussions, provide thoughtful code reviews, and elevate engineering standards.You take strong ownership of projects, driving them from concept through production and iteration.You are comfortable operating in fast-moving, ambiguous environments and can balance speed with quality.You proactively identify performance bottlenecks, reliability risks, and architectural gaps.You are customer-driven and prioritize building systems that deliver exceptional real-world experiences.Who You Are — As a PersonYou hold a BS in Computer Science, Engineering, Mathematics, or a related technical field (or equivalent experience).You have a minimum of 7+ years of professional software engineering experience, with at least 4 years of deep expertise in Python.You have strong experience with:Async Python (asyncio), concurrency, and performance optimizationAdvanced object-oriented design (dataclasses, inheritance, composition)Modern backend frameworks such as FastAPIDesigning and consuming REST APIs and authentication systems (OAuth2, JWT, etc.)You have experience building and operating production systems at scale.You understand metrics, logging, and monitoring pipelines, and have used tools like Grafana, Looker, Tableau, Omni, or similar.You communicate clearly with both technical and non-technical stakeholders.You enjoy mentoring teammates and raising the bar for those around you.Nice-to-Have ExperienceDesigning, fine-tuning, or deploying LLM-based systems in productionBuilding real-time voice, speech-to-text (STT), and text-to-speech (TTS) pipelinesExperience with Pipecat or similar voice and streaming frameworksStrong experience with AWS and/or GCP, Kubernetes, CI/CD, and infrastructure-as-codeExperience scaling early-stage startup systems into production-grade platformsComfort working onsite in NYC or LA, closely partnering with Engineering, Product, and Customer SuccessMore About UsWe're international, spanning the US, UK, and Canada.We've raised +$30M to date including our recent $20M Series A - backed by Ridge, Next Coast, ScOp, Bullpen Capital, Data Point and Forum Ventures, as well as founders & executives from Amazon Alexa, Ada, Attentive and Simon Data.Our tech stack includes Python, MongoDB, AWS, Twilio, Datadog, Snowflake, and Omni.Comprehensive healthcare and unlimited vacation, including a mandatory half week for everyone over July 4, and a full week off at the end of the year.In the office 5 days/week, we collaborate in real time on the desk.Final compensation may vary based on location, experience, and qualifications. This role is also eligible for equity, in accordance with company policy, and subject to board approval.Compensation Range: $150,000 - $200,000 USDOur customers span the globe, and so do our offices. Flip is committed to providing equal employment opportunities for all employees, applicants, and covered individuals regardless of protected characteristics. We want our company to be as diverse and inclusive as our customers.