Remote Senior Real-Time Voice Backend Engineer

Zendesk; United States; Hybrid; USD 145,000 - 217,000; Full time

Job summary

Zendesk is seeking a Senior Full Stack Engineer to build the real-time voice AI product that powers natural, reliable live conversations. You will reduce latency, improve flow, and enable AI-driven support through scalable backend services.

You will design and ship features across backend and web experiences, integrate telephony and WebRTC technologies, and partner with product and design to create polished voice experiences for customers worldwide.

Qualifications

• 3+ years building production software with backend focus.
• Experience with real-time or event-driven systems (WebRTC, SIP, streaming APIs).
• Proficiency in Python or equivalent backend languages and async architectures.

Responsibilities

• Design and implement backend services powering real-time voice conversations with focus on latency and reliability.
• Build integrations for telephony, WebRTC, real-time audio processing, and external AI/speech services.
• Ship end-to-end features across backend and frontend when required.
• Improve platform reliability through monitoring, tracing, autoscaling and failure recovery.
• Address challenges like turn-taking, interruptions, responsiveness, and graceful handoffs to humans.
• Collaborate with product and design to deliver polished voice experiences.

Skills

Backend engineering

Real-time systems

Python

APIs design

Job description

Zendesk is seeking a Senior Full Stack Engineer to build the real-time voice AI product that powers natural, reliable live conversations. You will reduce latency, improve flow, and enable AI-driven support through scalable backend services.

You will design and ship features across backend and web experiences, integrate telephony and WebRTC technologies, and partner with product and design to create polished voice experiences for customers worldwide.