Senior Software Engineer, Backend (Product)

Otter.ai; Mountain View (CA); On-site; USD 185,000 - 230,000; Full time

Job summary

Otter.ai is seeking a Senior Software Engineer to own significant areas of AI-powered product experiences. You will drive data ingestion, model orchestration, and delivery into user-facing surfaces while defining scalable architectures that balance latency and cost.

You’ll partner with product, design, and AI teams to prototype features like summaries and intelligent workflows, establish best practices, and elevate engineering quality across the team.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of experience building and scaling product-facing systems.
• Proficient in Python and modern web stack architecture.
• Experience with AI/LLM-powered systems or strong ability to contribute to their production behavior.

Responsibilities

• Own end-to-end delivery of AI product features from concept to production.
• Architect systems that orchestrate LLMs, retrieval, and structured data.
• Establish evaluation loops and user signals to improve AI output quality.
• Lead technical direction within a product area and guide multiple engineers.
• Mentor engineers to raise the engineering bar and improve product thinking.

Skills

Python

AI/LLM experience

System design

Web stack

Job description

The Opportunity

We’re building the next generation of AI-native product experiences, where conversations turn directly into outcomes. As a Senior Software Engineer on our Product teams, you’ll own significant areas of the product and play a key role in shaping how AI capabilities translate into real user value.

You’ll work across the full lifecycle of AI-driven features—from data ingestion and model orchestration to output structuring and delivery into user-facing product surfaces. In this role, you’ll not only build features, but also design the systems that power them—ensuring that AI outputs are reliable, performant, and aligned with real user needs.

You’ll take on complex, ambiguous problems and drive them from concept to production, making thoughtful tradeoffs across latency, cost, and quality. This includes defining how LLMs, retrieval systems, and structured data come together to create cohesive product experiences.

Working closely with product, design, and AI teams, you’ll rapidly prototype and iterate on features like summaries, action items, and intelligent workflows—while helping establish patterns and best practices that other engineers can build on.

You’ll also play a key role in elevating the team: guiding technical decisions, mentoring engineers, and raising the bar for both product thinking and engineering quality.

Your Impact

• Own end-to-end delivery of AI product features Lead the design and implementation of complex features—from initial concept through production—ensuring high quality and strong user impact.
• Drive system design for AI-backed experiences Architect systems that orchestrate LLMs, retrieval, and structured data, making thoughtful tradeoffs between flexibility, reliability, and performance.
• Elevate product quality through iteration and evaluation Establish and improve feedback loops (evaluation frameworks, user signals, experimentation) to systematically improve AI output quality.
• Lead technical direction within a product area Break down ambiguous problems, define approaches, and guide execution across multiple engineers.
• Mentor and raise the engineering bar Provide guidance on code quality, system design, and product thinking; help less experienced engineers operate more effectively in an AI-driven environment.
• Accelerate team velocity through AI-assisted development Model effective use of modern AI tools to improve iteration speed, code quality, and overall team productivity.

We’re Looking For Someone Who

• Has 5+ years of experience building and scaling product-facing systems, with a track record of owning complex features or product areas end-to-end
• Writes clean, maintainable code (Python preferred) and makes strong architecture and design decisions across a modern web stack
• Brings a high bar for product quality, not just system correctness — consistently asks whether what's being built actually serves users well
• Has experience working with AI/LLM-powered systems, or can ramp quickly and contribute meaningfully to shaping their behavior in production
• Drives projects from idea → production with strong ownership, and helps others do the same through mentorship and technical leadership
• Thrives in ambiguous, fast-moving environments and can set technical direction, not just execute within it

Nice to haves

• Experience building or experimenting with LLM-powered features (prompting, evaluation, RAG, etc.)
• Experience designing systems that balance latency, cost, and quality
• Exposure to user feedback loops, experimentation, or evaluation frameworks

About Otter.ai

We are in the business of shaping the future of work. Our mission is to make conversations more valuable.

With over 1B meetings transcribed, Otter.ai is the world’s leading tool for meeting transcription, summarization, and collaboration. Using artificial intelligence, Otter generates real-time automated meeting notes, summaries, and other insights from in-person and virtual meetings - turning meetings into accessible, collaborative, and actionable data that can be shared across teams and organizations. The company is backed by early investors in Google, DeepMind, Zoom, and Tesla.

Otter.ai is an equal opportunity employer. We proudly celebrate diversity and are committed to building an inclusive and accessible workplace. We provide reasonable accommodations for qualified applicants throughout the hiring process.

Accessibility & Accommodations

Otter.ai is committed to providing reasonable accommodations for candidates with disabilities in our hiring process. If you need assistance or an accommodation during any stage of the recruitment process, please contact [e-mail] at least 3 business days before your interview.

• Otter.ai does not accept unsolicited resumes from 3rd party recruitment agencies without a written agreement in place for permanent placements. Any resume or other candidate information submitted outside of established candidate submission guidelines (including through our website or via email to any Otter.ai employee) and without a written agreement otherwise will be deemed to be our sole property, and no fee will be paid should we hire the candidate.

Salary range

Salary Range: $185,000 to $230,000 USD per year.

This salary range represents the low and high end of the estimated salary range for this position. The actual base salary offered for the role is dependent on several factors. Our base salary is just one component of a comprehensive total rewards package.