Software Engineer - Platform

Our vision is to build the next generation platform to enable easy and fast creation of audio and video content powered by cutting-edge AI.

Building a revolutionary way to record, transcribe, edit and mix spoken audio and video comes with a series of unique challenges and requires solving hard and complex problems.

A variety of soft skills and experience may be required for the following role Please ensure you check the overview below carefully.

Platform engineers are our human to metal interface. They manage the foundation that everything else is built on, and provide the tools to support Descript's entire engineering org and customers.

This is one of the most important roles in the company.

What You'll Do

• Use of web technologies to deliver a high-performance professional creative tool that's traditionally been the domain of native desktop applications.
• Build v2 of our server and client platforms to turbocharge engineering productivity across Descript, allowing us to ship faster to our users.
• Build and deploy service infrastructure in support of Descript's production services with emphasis on security, reliability, and scalability.
• Support observability of highly available services relied upon by our users to support its availability and performance through telemetry, alerts, and SLOs.

What You Bring

• 5+ years of professional software development experience.
• You're comfortable with uncertainty, maybe even thrive in it; you can take large projects and break them down into small, concrete features and then build those incrementally.
• Experience building and managing highly available distributed applications.
• Proficiency in one or more programming languages like Typescript, Python, Go etc and technologies such as :
• Cloud infra platforms e.g. GCP, AWS, Azure.
• Databases e.g. PostGreSQL, Bigtable, BigQuery, Redis, etc.
• Container runtimes e.g. Docker.
• Strong written and verbal communication.

Nice to Have :

• You know how to prioritize when everything is vying for your attention. Even if it means letting some fires burn while you put out more important ones.
• Experience with the following technologies :
• durable workflow platforms like Temporal.
• IaC tools like Terraform.
• Container orchestration platforms e.g. K8s.
• Proficiency in database design, sharding, replication, and tuning for high-traffic environments.
• Knowledge of CI / CD pipelines spanning code regressions, reproducible builds, and deployment strategies along with the associated infrastructure.

At our current size and stage, we embrace a flat organizational structure and value the expertise and contributions of every team member.

As such, we have a unified job title for our engineering roles where everyone, including those with Staff-level scope, is considered a Software Engineer.

While titles may not change, we are actively seeking senior and above Software Engineers to join our team.

The base salary range for this role is $160,000-$230,000 / year. Final offer amounts will carefully consider multiple factors, including prior experience, expertise, location, and may vary from the amount above.

About Descript

Descript is building a simple, intuitive, fully-powered editing tool for video and audio an editing tool built for the age of AI.

We are a team of 125 with a proven CEO and the backing of some of the world's greatest investors (OpenAI, Andreessen Horowitz, Redpoint Ventures, Spark Capital).

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.

Benefits include a generous healthcare package, catered lunches, and flexible vacation time. We currently have offices in San Francisco and Montreal, and are open to folks working remotely between PT and ET 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.

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