Software Engineer

LLMs are trained to follow the human they're talking to. Ours has to lead: read intent and tone, steer the conversation, and still beat some of the best sales teams in the country . If we get it right, owning a home in the US gets about 1% cheaper. Frontier models aren't built for that. We are.

Outperforming human sales teams on hundreds of thousands of calls a day is not easy. Here's what you'd actually be building.

01 An LLM That Leads, Not Follows

• Models are trained to be agreeable. Ours has to sell.
• Persuade and adapt to a real person without going off-script
• A research-flavored problem the labs aren’t optimizing for

02 Real-Time, Non-Deterministic

• What sounds like one agent is a swarm of specialists handing off mid-call
• We rewrite the agent’s context, tools, and instructions between turns
• All inside a few hundred milliseconds, every single turn

03 Testing Things With No Right Answer

• Conversations aren’t functions that return true or false
• Turn-level evals on real moments, plus full end-to-end simulations
• Simulated callers, LLM-as-judge, and metrics per behavior

04 Real People, Real Responsibility

• People tell our agents genuinely personal things. That is not abstract.
• Security and privacy are design constraints, not a checkbox
• Bounded autonomy — unsafe actions simply don’t exist for the agent

The Team

This might sound simple but it is rigorously enforced. Our employees are the soul of the company and we both demand and reward success.

01 Intelligence

Uncommonly bright. You can hold a messy problem in your head and make it simpler, approach problems from creative angles, and navigate ambiguous and novel situations with clarity and speed.

02 Communication

Writing, thinking, and exchanging views is at the heart of our decision making process. We judge by the quality of the idea and the evidence, not the pedigree of the person who is sharing it.

03 Team player

Everyone's contributions must be impressive and significant, but they also must be integral to the success of the company. A team victory rewards all.

Studied at

Built things at

Google Meta Apple Amazon

Culture

What We Keep Coming Back To

These three values govern how we work.

01 A+ bots, or don't ship

We insist on human-level fluency. Every conversation should feel natural, capable, and polished.

02 Own a large piece

Our product has lots of surface area and we expect each of our employees to own a large part of it. Your time is your own; self-starters and problem solvers will be celebrated.

03 This is supposed to be fun

We work hard and we don't take ourselves too seriously. The intensity and velocity are infectious.

The Practical Stuff

Generous where it counts: top-of-market health, early equity, four days in SF, and dinner on us.

01 Medical

Top-of-market health coverage for you and your dependents.

02 Dental & Vision

Comprehensive dental and vision coverage for you and your dependents.

03 401(k) Matching

A top-of-market employer match on your retirement contributions.

04 Meaningful Equity

Real ownership in what we’re building, granted at an early stage.

05 Top Talent, Top Pay

We hire exceptional people to build together in San Francisco, and pay accordingly.

06 Unlimited PTO

Take the time you need. We mean it — please actually use it.

07 Snacks & Dinner

Snacks around the office, and dinner on us.

08 Hybrid In Office

Four days a week together in SF, with a flexible remote day on Wednesdays.

Open Roles

Come Work Here

We're hiring people who can own a large piece and still make the whole better. The product is already in market, the problems are hard, and the team is still small enough that you'll change what we build.

Software Engineer

Location

Employment Type

Full time

Location Type

On-site

Department

Compensation

About Sela

Sela is the market-leading AI voice agent for mortgage lenders. Founded in 2024, we’ve grown like crazy (~$0->13M in 20 months), and currently count 5 of the 10 largest independent mortgage banks in the U.S. as enterprise customers. If we’re successful, the cost of owning a home in the US will become ~1% cheaper. We’ve raised $21M across our Seed and Series A from top investors.

Why this is a huge opportunity

Around 1% of the U.S. labor force works in phone sales, representing roughly $100B of annual salary, and the industry is poised at the brink of complete disruption. We are at the cutting edge of this economic transformation, one of the first companies creating real, durable economic value through applied AI.

Buying a house is the largest financial decision most people make in their lives, and homeownership is tied to many other purchases, including life insurance, homeowners insurance, alarm systems, home renovations, solar panels, and more. By owning the mortgage vertical, we will own the relationship with the consumer, allowing us to serve as the essential AI infrastructure for high consideration consumer sales.

Why Join

Crazy growth: The market pull is exhilarating - we’ve grown 10x in the past 12 months and more than 100x since our seed round, all without a dedicated sales or marketing team. Building something that people want so badly is the best feeling you can have in a startup.

Team and Culture: We are a high-agency team where the bar is high and everyone makes the people around them better. Collaboration and intensity are core team values: people truly care about their work and their coworkers. At the same time, we don't take ourselves too seriously.

Challenging problems: Outperforming human sales teams on half a million daily calls is not easy. Low-latency, real-time infra. 99.9% uptime. Enterprise-grade privacy and security. Advanced simulation and evaluation systems. Flexible A/B testing. AI scheduler and dialer. We own the whole stack and we do not compromise on quality.

Well-funded: We’ve raised $21M+ in total funding, most recently a $15M Series A in June 2026.

What will you do

Work with the product team to translate customer requirements into highly scalable and maintainable software architecture

Use AI coding agents and internal tooling to deliver new features and improve existing code

Own one or more of Sela’s core software components end-to-end, from architecture and implementation to reliability in production. Examples include - Simulation and evaluation system of the AI agents; A/B testing framework; SMS capabilities of the Agents; Voice orchestration infrastructure; Phone number management; Outbound strategy, call scheduler and dialer; Agent orchestration framework; Agent management framework; Security and Privacy Services

What are we looking for

• Deep understanding of common software design patterns and best practices
• Experience using AI coding tools or agents to ship maintainable, clean code
• Excellent technical communication skills
• Track record of owning and delivering major product features
• Expert knowledge of at least one major programming language
• Experience in high-growth startups, ideally at Seed through Series B

Top‑of‑market medical, dental, and vision coverage for you and your dependents

401(k) with a top‑of‑market employer match

Unlimited PTO

Snacks, weekly team lunches, and dinner on Sela

Hybrid in-office schedule: four days a week together in SF, with a flexible remote day on Wednesdays