Staff/Principal Software Engineer
About this role
What we're looking for:
We need a Staff/Principal-level backend engineer with 8+ years of experience building and deploying cloud-based services at scale who thrives in a fast-moving startup environment. You should be comfortable working as a strong IC with technical autonomy, have a track record of shipping zero-to-one platform products, and bring adaptability across tools and programming languages. Bonus points if you have experience with AI products, founder experience, or have worked at high-caliber companies like Databricks or similar AI/infrastructure startups.
What you'll do:
Own core backend systems for Inworld Router — an intelligent routing layer across 200+ LLMs with multi-provider failover, cost/latency-based routing, and real-time observability at massive scale
Build and scale API-based model services (TTS, STT, LLM, Knowledge/RAG) powering consumer-facing AI applications with hundreds of millions of end users
Design and implement realtime, low-latency systems for speech-to-speech and Realtime API products
Collaborate closely with PMs, engineers, and sibling ML teams to determine the biggest product needs and ship quickly in a rapidly evolving AI landscape
Drive system improvements and advocate for new technical standards, dependencies, and architectural decisions with considerable technical autonomy
Work on ambitious new products launching later this year, including platformization of new offerings and system-wide infrastructure projects
Key context:
This is a pure IC role — no management responsibilities, but strong ownership expected
Flat team structure reporting to the VP of Engineering (~7-8 person team)
AI tools and agents are embraced in the development workflow and interview process
Startup experience is strongly preferred — candidates from only large tech companies without any startup background are not a fit
Adaptability across tools and languages is valued over deep specialization in a single language
Company at a glance
Inworld is an AI company providing real-time models for developers to build multimodal AI companions and agents at consumer scale, with adoption from NVIDIA, Microsoft Xbox, and Logitech Streamlabs.
What happens next
Skip the application pile. I get you in front of the people who decide.
Confirm the fit
A few questions to make sure this role is the right shape for you. Two minutes.
I pitch you to the company
I write the intro, send it to the founder, and handle the back-and-forth.
A meeting lands on your calendar
When the company wants to meet, I get the call on your calendar. You just show up.
Know someone who'd be great for this?
