Principal/Staff Software Engineer Seattle

Synthesia; Seattle (WA); On-site; USD 180,000 - 220,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Stock options

25 days leave

Job summary

Synthesia in Seattle seeks a senior software engineer to own and operate core enterprise platform services at scale, focusing on security, reliability, and performance for our largest customers.

You will help build new APIs for our Avatar technology, collaborate across product and security teams, and translate complex requirements into reliable technical solutions while shaping the platform's long-term direction.

Qualifications

• Minimum 7 years of software engineering experience.
• Experience building enterprise-grade systems at scale.
• Strong system design and cross-stack knowledge (Python, React, AWS).
• Experience owning production systems including observability and reliability improvements.
• Ability to lead projects and mentor engineers.

Responsibilities

• Own and deliver large-scale platform services spanning multiple teams.
• Contribute to APIs for the Avatar technology suite.
• Ensure security, reliability and compliance in systems.
• Translate business and regulatory requirements into scalable technical solutions.
• Monitor system health and reliability metrics to drive improvements.

Skills

Senior software engineer

Platform engineering

System design

Observability

Cross-team collaboration

Mentoring

Python

React

AWS

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science

Tools

Python

React

AWS

Job description

Synthesia is the world’s leading AI video platform for business, used by over 90% of the Fortune 100. Founded in 2017, the company is headquartered in London, with offices and teams across Europe and the US.

As AI continues to shape the way we live and work, Synthesia develops products to enhance visual communication and enterprise skill development, helping people work better and stay at the center of successful organizations.

Following our recent Series E funding round, where we raised $200 million, our valuation stands at $4 billion. Our total funding exceeds $530 million from premier investors including Accel, NVentures (Nvidia's VC arm), Kleiner Perkins, GV, and Evantic Capital, alongside the founders and operators of Stripe, Datadog, Miro, and Webflow.

About the role

You will work on core enterprise platform systems, focusing on services that ensure Synthesia is secure, reliable, and scalable for our largest customers.

You will contribute to our new suite of APIs that will unlock our market leading Avatar technology to be utilised by external creative tools.

We are an AI native company and use the most powerful assistant tools on a daily basis to increase our speed of development, automate repetitive tasks and widen the scope of what the team can worked on. This includes Claude and Cursor.

You will have ownership of projects that span months and multiple teams, requiring you to break down complex, ambiguous problems into clear steps that can be delivered and validated iteratively.

Engineers within Synthesia are empowered to contribute heavily to product discussions and build with both user and business considerations in mind. Impact is key to everything we do here.

You will work closely with product, security, legal, and infrastructure partners, and will be expected to translate business and regulatory requirements into scalable technical solutions.

You will evaluate your work through system health and reliability metrics, leveraging observability and monitoring to ensure systems meet performance, reliability, and compliance expectations.

You will consider the long‑term direction of the platform, ensuring that the systems we build today can support future scale, enterprise requirements, and evolving regulatory needs.

What we're looking for:

• At least seven (7) years of experience as a software engineer, with experience operating at a senior or staff level.
• You have experience building and operating systems at scale, ideally within platform or enterprise‑focused teams.
• Strong expertise in development and system design. Experience across the stack is a plus, our tech stack is Python, React & AWS.
• Relevant engineering experience for teams building enterprise‑grade systems; this may include areas such as security, compliance, data handling, access control, multi‑tenant systems, or platform services.
• Experience owning systems in production, including observability, incident response, and reliability improvements.
• Ability to work across teams and functions, aligning with stakeholders and driving technical initiatives end‑to‑end.
• Strong alignment with building reliable, scalable systems that support long‑term product and business goals.
• Previous experience leading projects or mentoring other engineers is a plus.

Why join us?

We’re living the golden age of AI. The next decade will yield the next iconic companies, and we dare to say we have what it takes to become one. Here’s why:

Our culture

At Synthesia we’re passionate about building, not talking, planning or politicising. We strive to hire the smartest, kindest and most unrelenting people and let them do their best work without distractions. Our work principles serve as our charter for how we make decisions, give feedback and structure our work to empower everyone to go as fast as possible. You can find out more about these principles here.

Serving 50,000+ customers (and 50% of the Fortune 500)

We’re trusted by leading brands such as Heineken, Zoom, Xerox, McDonald’s and more. Read stories from happy customers and what 1,200+ people say on G2.

Proprietary AI technology

Since 2017, we’ve been pioneering advancements in Generative AI. Our AI technology is built in-house, by a team of world‑class AI researchers and engineers. Learn more about our AI Research Lab and the team behind.

AI Safety, Ethics and Security

AI safety, ethics, and security are fundamental to our mission. While the full scope of Artificial Intelligence's impact on our society is still unfolding, our position is clear: People first. Always. Learn more about our commitments to AI Ethics, Safety & Security.

The hiring process:

1. Tech Recruiter Interview (30-40min) - Technical background, previous experience, and what you're looking for
2. Delivery and Impact Interview (60min) - Deep dive into your past projects, impact, and ways of working
3. Technical Rounds:
   • Live Coding Interview (75min) - Hands‑on problem solving (not Leetcode style); collaboration exercise with one of our engineers. AI‑assisted coding welcome.
   • System Design Technical Discussion (60min) - Real architectural problems we've faced in production
   • Leadership Retrospective (45min) - Examples of collaboration and growth; your future manager or VP of Engineering will outline your role and what's ahead
4. Final debrief on our side which leads to an offer or the end of the process.

You can find more details on what to expect and how to prepare HERE. The process does not need to take long - we can be done in two weeks time.

Other important info:

• The salary starts at USD 200,000 base + stock option plan
• This is full‑time employment only - no contractors possible - through our US entity
• Everyone at Synthesia gets 25 days of leave + local holidays (no extra paid or unpaid leave possible).
• Requirements: Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or Science‑related fields, or equivalent combination of education, experience and training.