Sr. AI Voice Engineer

Hankey Group; Los Angeles (CA); On-site; USD 120,000 - 170,000; Full time

Job summary

Hankey Group is seeking an on-site Senior Voice AI Engineer in Los Angeles to design and develop real-time voice-to-voice AI agents and conversational systems.

You will integrate STT/TTS, optimize latency, and build backend services in Python and C#/.NET while collaborating with product managers and AI engineers to deliver production-ready solutions.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's or Master's degree in CS, SWE, AI, or related field.
• 5+ years of professional software engineering experience.
• Hands-on experience building voice-to-voice AI applications.
• Strong knowledge of: Speech Recognition (ASR), Speech Synthesis (TTS), Voice Activity Detection (VAD), Audio streaming.
• Experience with Python and C#/.NET; REST APIs and microservices.
• Knowledge of asynchronous programming, event-driven architectures, and real-time streaming.
• Strong debugging, analytical, and problem-solving skills.

Responsibilities

• Design and develop real-time voice-to-voice AI agents.
• Build conversational AI systems using LLMs and agent frameworks.
• Integrate STT and TTS technologies into production applications.
• Optimize latency and streaming performance for natural conversations.
• Develop backend services and APIs using Python and C#/.NET.
• Integrate with telephony, voice streaming, and communication platforms.
• Implement memory, tool calling, function execution, and RAG workflows.
• Collaborate with product managers, AI engineers, and software developers to deliver production-ready AI solutions.
• Evaluate emerging AI models, speech technologies, and voice platforms.
• Monitor, troubleshoot, and continuously improve voice agent performance and reliability.

Skills

Voice AI development

Python

C#/.NET

REST APIs

Microservices

Asynchronous programming

Real-time streaming

Debugging and problem solving

Speech technologies

Latency optimization

Education

Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Artificial Intelligence, or a related field

Tools

Azure AI

Azure OpenAI

Docker

Kubernetes

WebRTC

Job description

This role involves working with state-of-the-art speech recognition, speech synthesis, voice streaming, and AI agent frameworks to create scalable voice solutions for customer service, sales, finance, and automation applications. This is an on-site position with no relocation assistance provided.

If you're passionate about conversational AI and enjoy solving challenging engineering problems, we'd love to hear from you.

Responsibilities

• Design and develop real-time voice-to-voice AI agents.
• Build conversational AI systems using LLMs and agent frameworks.
• Integrate Speech-to-Text (STT) and Text-to-Speech (TTS) technologies into production applications.
• Optimize latency and streaming performance for natural conversations.
• Develop backend services and APIs using Python and C#/.NET.
• Integrate with telephony, voice streaming, and communication platforms.
• Implement conversation memory, tool calling, function execution, and retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) workflows.
• Collaborate with product managers, AI engineers, and software developers to deliver production-ready AI solutions.
• Evaluate emerging AI models, speech technologies, and voice platforms.
• Monitor, troubleshoot, and continuously improve voice agent performance and reliability.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Artificial Intelligence, or a related field.
• 5+ years of professional software engineering experience.
• Hands‑on experience building voice-to-voice AI applications.
• Strong understanding of:
• Speech Recognition (Automatic Speech Recognition - ASR)
• Speech Synthesis (Text-to-Speech - TTS)
• Voice Activity Detection (VAD)
• Audio streaming and low‑latency communication

• Professional experience with Python and C#/.NET.
• Experience consuming AI APIs and working with LLMs.
• Experience building REST APIs and microservices.
• Knowledge of asynchronous programming, event‑driven architectures, and real‑time streaming.
• Strong debugging, analytical, and problem‑solving skills.

Preferred Qualifications

Experience with one or more of the following:

• Real‑time conversational AI platforms
• AI agent frameworks
• Retrieval‑Augmented Generation (RAG)
• Vector databases
• Prompt engineering and evaluation
• WebRTC, SIP, RTP, or telephony integrations
• Azure AI, Azure OpenAI, or other cloud AI services
• Docker and Kubernetes

CI/CD pipelines and cloud‑native application development