Media Software Engineer, Speech (Senior-Staff Levels)

Cantina, Inc.

Sunnyvale (CA)

Hybrid

USD 180,000 - 270,000

Full time

14 days+

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Benefits offered by this job

Equity

Healthcare benefits

Paid time off

Parental leave

401(k) retirement plan

Lifestyle spending account

In-office meals

Job summary

Cantina, Inc. is seeking a Media Software Engineer in Sunnyvale/San Francisco with 3+ years of experience to enhance real-time speech and media systems powering AI conversations. You’ll tackle low-latency pipelines, cross‑platform WebRTC work, and high-performance C++ components across iOS, Android, and web.

The role emphasizes independent project execution and collaboration with the Cantina Labs team to push speech recognition and synthesis capabilities in a fast-paced, creative AI environment.

Qualifications

BS or MS in Computer Science or related field, or equivalent experience.
3+ years of experience as a software engineer.
Excellent communication skills.
Ability to work independently from requirements to completion.
Experience with C or C++ in a professional context.
Strong fundamentals in memory management, data structures, and concurrent/multithreaded systems.
Familiarity with system programming concepts including networking, asynchronous I/O, and distributed architectures.
Object-oriented development and design skills.
Interest in solving challenging engineering problems.

Responsibilities

Improve real-time speech and media systems powering live AI conversations.
Reduce latency and optimize responsiveness across audio streaming and speech pipelines.
Build tools to enable creation of AI models to support speech processing.
Develop new voice and video capabilities for immersive user interactions.
Improve and extend our WebRTC infrastructure across iOS, Android, and web.

Skills

C/C++

Real-time systems

Multithreading

Memory management

Independent work

High-performance computing

Education

BS or MS in Computer Science/Engineering or related field

Tools

WebRTC

Streaming protocols

Media processing

Backend server infra

iOS/Android development

Node.js or Go

AI/ML in speech

Job description

Media Software Engineer, Speech (Senior-Staff Levels)

Location

Sunnyvale; San Francisco

Employment Type

Full time

Location Type

Hybrid

Department

About Cantina:

Cantina Labs is a social AI company, developing a suite of advanced real-time models that push the boundaries of expression, personality, and realism. We bring characters to life, transforming how people tell stories, connect, and create. We build and power ecosystems. Cantina, our flagship social AI platform, is just the beginning.

If you're excited about the potential AI has to shape human creativity and social interactions, join us in building the future!

About the Role:

The Media Team at Cantina is building the real-time infrastructure powering live conversations between people and AI characters. Our goal is simple to express, but challenging to make real: enabling fast, natural, and truly conversational interaction with diverse and creative characters.

We’re looking for a Software Engineer to help improve the speech, audio, and media systems at the heart of the Cantina experience.

This team’s responsibilities cover low-level media processing pipelines, integration with internal and external models for speech recognition and synthesis, and globally distributed, WebRTC-based infrastructure supporting real-time voice and video interactions across iOS, Android, and web.

If you’re excited by high-performance C++, real-time systems, speech technologies, and building the future of conversational AI, we’d love to talk.

What You’ll Do:

Improve the real-time speech and media systems powering live AI conversations.
Reduce latency and optimize responsiveness across audio streaming and speech pipelines.
Build tools to enable the creation of AI models to support speech processing.
Develop new voice and video capabilities that enable more immersive interactions between users and AI bots.
Improve and extend our custom WebRTC infrastructure across iOS, Android, and web.

What You’ll Bring:

BS or MS in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or a related field; or equivalent experience.
3+ years of experience working as a software engineer.
Excellent communications skills.
Demonstrated ability to work independently to drive projects from requirements to completion.
Experience with C or C++ in a professional context.
Grounding in computer science fundamentals, including memory management, high-performance data structures, and concurrent / multithreaded systems.
Exposure to system programming concepts, including network protocol design, asynchronous I/O, and distributed system architectures..
Object-oriented development and design skills.
Interest in solving subtle and challenging engineering problems.

Preferred qualifications:

Previous experience with WebRTC, streaming protocols, or other media-adjacent technologies.
Familiarity with media processing techniques..
Experience creating backend server infrastructure.
Experience developing software for iOS or Android.
Familiarity with building services using Node.js or Go.
Familiarity with artificial intelligence and machine learning techniques, particularly in relation to speech recognition and synthesis.

Compensation:

The anticipated annual base salary range for this role is between $180,000-$270,000. When determining compensation, a number of factors will be considered, including skills, experience, job scope, location, and competitive compensation market data.