Real-Time Voice AI Agent Systems Engineer

HireNow Staffing; New York (NY); On-site; USD 200,000 - 300,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity participation included

In-person 4–5 days/week in Manhattan

Direct placement with HireNow

Job summary

HireNow Staffing is seeking a Real-Time Voice AI Agent Systems Engineer to own and build production-grade voice AI infrastructure from the ground up in Manhattan. You will manage LiveKit-based orchestration, prompting architecture, and latency optimization for millions of real-world voice interactions.

The role requires 3+ years in infrastructure-backed engineering, 2+ years in voice AI, and hands-on Node.js, AWS, and SQL experience in a fast-moving startup environment.

Qualifications

• 3+ years of platform, infrastructure, backend, or comparable production engineering experience.
• 2+ years of experience involving voice AI, conversational AI, speech systems, prompt engineering, or related agentic workflows.
• Strong hands-on development experience with Node.js.
• Strong experience with AWS and SQL.
• Experience designing and shipping production systems within a startup or similarly fast-moving engineering environment.
• Hands-on experience with LiveKit or a comparable voice orchestration/agent framework.
• Strong understanding of real-time system architecture, state management, reliability, and performance optimization.
• Demonstrated ability to design clear, resilient, and effective conversational prompts and agent flows.
• Strong analytical ability with experience connecting engineering decisions to measurable operational or business outcomes.
• Excellent written and verbal English communication skills.
• High degree of technical ownership and ability to execute with limited oversight.
• Must reside in or be willing to relocate to the New York City area.
• Must be able to work onsite in Manhattan 4–5 days per week.
• Must be permanently authorized to work in the United States.
• No visa sponsorship is available.

Responsibilities

• Build and own production voice AI infrastructure using LiveKit.
• Architect real-time voice-agent systems covering orchestration, state management, reliability, latency, and conversational execution.
• Develop the prompting architecture governing conversation flows, tone, guardrails, compliant phrasing, exception handling, and agent behavior.
• Create scalable testing and evaluation frameworks incorporating A/B testing, regression testing, conversation QA, benchmarking, and KPI measurement.
• Analyze production interaction data and translate findings into measurable improvements in agent performance.
• Optimize ASR, STT, TTS, turn-taking, interruption handling, state transitions, and real-time conversational responsiveness.
• Build infrastructure capable of reliably supporting millions of voice interactions.
• Develop migration tooling and processes for transitioning customers from legacy voice infrastructure while preserving required customizations.
• Identify and resolve performance bottlenecks, reliability issues, conversational failures, and production edge cases.
• Partner closely with Product, Operations, and leadership to translate commercial objectives into technical systems and effective agent behavior.
• Continuously expand conversational coverage as new customer scenarios and operational requirements emerge.

Skills

Node.js

AWS

SQL

LiveKit

Real-time systems

Prompt engineering

Performance tuning

English communication

Tools

LiveKit

Job description

Real-Time Voice AI Agent Systems Engineer

Company: HireNow Staffing (Direct Placement Partner)

HireNow Snapshot

HireNow Staffing is actively recruiting a highly skilled Real-Time Voice AI Agent Systems Engineer to join one of our valued client partners. This is a high-ownership engineering opportunity for someone capable of building production-grade voice AI infrastructure and conversational agent systems from the ground up.

The selected engineer will own the technical foundation behind millions of real-world AI voice interactions—from LiveKit architecture and orchestration to prompting, speech performance, testing, reliability, and continuous optimization.

This position requires more than traditional backend development. The successful candidate must understand how infrastructure, conversational logic, speech systems, latency, and business outcomes intersect. The engineer will have significant ownership over how AI agents communicate, respond, recover from edge cases, and perform at scale.

Key Responsibilities

• Build and own production voice AI infrastructure using LiveKit.
• Architect real-time voice-agent systems covering orchestration, state management, reliability, latency, and conversational execution.
• Develop the prompting architecture governing conversation flows, tone, guardrails, compliant phrasing, exception handling, and agent behavior.
• Create scalable testing and evaluation frameworks incorporating A/B testing, regression testing, conversation QA, benchmarking, and KPI measurement.
• Analyze production interaction data and translate findings into measurable improvements in agent performance.
• Optimize ASR, STT, TTS, turn-taking, interruption handling, state transitions, and real-time conversational responsiveness.
• Build infrastructure capable of reliably supporting millions of voice interactions.
• Develop migration tooling and processes for transitioning customers from legacy voice infrastructure while preserving required customizations.
• Identify and resolve performance bottlenecks, reliability issues, conversational failures, and production edge cases.
• Partner closely with Product, Operations, and leadership to translate commercial objectives into technical systems and effective agent behavior.
• Continuously expand conversational coverage as new customer scenarios and operational requirements emerge.

Required Qualifications

• 3+ years of platform, infrastructure, backend, or comparable production engineering experience.
• 2+ years of experience involving voice AI, conversational AI, speech systems, prompt engineering, or related agentic workflows.
• Strong hands-on development experience with Node.js.
• Strong experience with AWS and SQL.
• Experience designing and shipping production systems within a startup or similarly fast‑moving engineering environment.
• Hands‑on experience with LiveKit or a comparable voice orchestration/agent framework.
• Strong understanding of real‑time system architecture, state management, reliability, and performance optimization.
• Demonstrated ability to design clear, resilient, and effective conversational prompts and agent flows.
• Strong analytical ability with experience connecting engineering decisions to measurable operational or business outcomes.
• Excellent written and verbal English communication skills.
• High degree of technical ownership and ability to execute with limited oversight.
• Must reside in or be willing to relocate to the New York City area.
• Must be able to work onsite in Manhattan 4–5 days per week.
• Must be permanently authorized to work in the United States.
• No visa sponsorship is available.

Preferred Qualifications

• Production experience with SIP trunking and telephony infrastructure.
• Experience developing real-time audio pipelines.
• Knowledge of call routing, telephony carriers, and communication integrations.
• Experience operating speech infrastructure at significant production scale.
• Advanced knowledge of ASR/STT, TTS, interruption management, latency optimization, and conversational turn-taking.
• Experience building evaluation frameworks for production AI agents.
• Background in debt collection, financial services, fintech, or regulated consumer communications.
• Experience working in an early‑stage or Seed‑stage startup environment.
• Experience connecting agent‑performance metrics to conversion, containment, satisfaction, or other commercial KPIs.

HireNow Package

Compensation: $200,000–$300,000 annually + equity

Employment Type: Full-Time | Direct Placement

Experience Level: 3–10 years, with required relevant engineering experience.

Work Location: Manhattan, New York | In-Person 4–5 Days Per Week

Equity: Equity participation included.

Applicant Requirements: Candidates must be based in or willing to relocate to the New York City area and able to meet the in-person requirement.

Work Authorization: Permanent U.S. work authorization required. No visa sponsorship available.

HireNow Checklist

• Combines strong backend/infrastructure engineering with meaningful voice AI, conversational AI, speech, or agentic-system experience.
• Has hands‑on expertise with Node.js, AWS, SQL, and LiveKit or comparable technology.
• Can architect real-time production systems rather than focusing exclusively on application-level development.
• Understands prompting as an engineering discipline involving conversational logic, guardrails, testing, edge cases, and measurable performance.
• Can optimize speech‑agent behavior across latency, turn‑taking, interruptions, state transitions, and reliability.
• Has successfully shipped production technology in a fast‑moving environment.
• Uses data and testing to connect technical improvements directly to business results.
• Can work onsite in Manhattan 4–5 days per week without requiring employment sponsorship.

HireNow Standout Candidates

Candidates will receive the strongest consideration if they demonstrate:

• Direct experience building production voice AI infrastructure from the ground up.
• Deep hands‑on LiveKit experience.
• Proven experience supporting voice or conversational systems operating at significant interaction volume.
• Expertise spanning real‑time infrastructure, speech technology, prompting, evaluation, and performance optimization rather than only one discipline.
• Experience with SIP, telephony carriers, real‑time audio pipelines, and production call infrastructure.
• Strong experimentation skills using A/B tests, regression testing, benchmarking, and conversation‑quality analysis.
• Demonstrated improvements to measurable AI‑agent KPIs or business outcomes.
• Experience operating successfully within small, highly technical startup teams.
• Knowledge of regulated financial‑services or consumer‑communications environments.
• Stable employment history demonstrating increasing engineering ownership.

HireNow Disqualifiers

• Jumpy resumes will not be accepted or interviewed.
• Less than three years of relevant platform, infrastructure, backend, or comparable engineering experience.
• No meaningful voice AI, conversational AI, speech‑system, prompt‑engineering, or related agentic‑workflow experience.
• No experience shipping production‑grade systems.
• Insufficient hands‑on experience with Node.js, AWS, or SQL.
• No exposure to LiveKit or comparable voice‑agent/orchestration frameworks.
• Candidates whose experience is limited to prompt writing without sufficient production engineering expertise.
• Candidates unable to work onsite in Manhattan 4–5 days per week or relocate accordingly.
• Applicants requiring current or future visa sponsorship.
• Candidates who do not meet the core qualifications.