Staff+ Production Engineer

Tensec; Palo Alto (CA); On-site; USD 130,000 - 160,000; Full time

Job summary

Tensec is seeking a Developer Platform Engineer to spearhead the development of its developer-facing platform. You will design and maintain SDKs for real-time Speech AI APIs, work on API contracts and documentation, and manage the developer portal.

This role requires strong engineering experience, particularly with developer tools and APIs. Ideal candidates should be comfortable with both frontend and backend development and have a proven track record of API design and developer experience focus.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of software engineering experience, with at least 2 years on developer-facing products.
• Experience designing REST or WebSocket APIs from scratch.
• Ability to build full-featured applications in React and manage backend services.

Responsibilities

• Design, implement, and maintain SDKs for real-time Speech AI APIs.
• Own the design of the public API surface including documentation.
• Build and evolve the web-based developer portal including API key management.

Skills

Software engineering experience

API design

SDK development

Full-stack development

Strong engineering taste

Job description

Sanas is pioneering the future of human communication. Founded by a team of Stanford researchers and entrepreneurs with deep industry experience, Sanas has developed the world's first real‑time speech AI platform capable of accent translation, noise cancellation, speech enhancement, cross‑language communication, and more.

Sanas makes conversations clearer, more inclusive, and more effective, removing barriers that prevent people from being understood, regardless of accent, background noise, or native language.

Sanas is currently one of the fastest growing startups in Silicon Valley, growing from $16M to $50M ARR in 2025. The company's core business is profitable and is on track to end 2026 with >$120M ARR. Our team combines deep expertise in model innovation and systems engineering with a design‑minded product engineering culture to build and ship cutting‑edge AI models and experiences — entirely in‑house.

Sanas is a 180‑strong team, established in 2020. In this short span, we've successfully secured over $100 million in funding. Our innovation has been supported by the industry's leading investors, including Insight Partners, Google Ventures, Quadrille Capital, General Catalyst, Quiet Capital, and other influential investors. Our reputation is further solidified by collaborations with numerous Fortune 100 companies. With Sanas, you're not just adopting a product; you're investing in the future of communication.

If you’re looking to have a significant role in roadmapping and driving technical directions, if you’re looking to deploy challenging and big ideas without much overhead or slowness, if you're looking to leave your mark on an ambitious, generational mission to change how the worlds thinks about speech + AI, then Sanas is a well‑suited place for you.

About the Role

We are looking for a Developer Platform Engineer to own and build the developer‑facing surface of Sanas end‑to‑end. This is a founding‑level role: you will be the first person fully dedicated to owning this platform, shaping everything from the API contract to the SDK to the docs to the console.

This is a builder role, not an oversight role. You will write code, author docs, ship the SDK, and own the console. This is a role intended for a true builder/creator.

Job Description

• SDK — Design, implement, and maintain idiomatic SDKs for Sanas's real‑time Speech AI APIs. Streaming support, robust error handling, automatic retries, type safety, and a DX‑first design that makes integration feel effortless. Own versioning, deprecation, and changelog.
• API design and contracts — Own the design of the public API surface: naming conventions, versioning strategy, error codes, response shapes, and pagination. Partner with the technical writer to ensure reference documentation reflects the spec accurately.
• Developer Console — Build and evolve the web‑based developer portal: API key management, usage and analytics dashboards, credential provisioning flows, and environment management. Own both the frontend and the backend APIs that power it.
• Documentation architecture — Own the technical accuracy of everything published. Define what needs to be documented, review for correctness, and ensure the information architecture reflects how developers actually integrate Sanas.
• Developer experience — Continuously improve the end‑to‑end journey from first API call to production deployment. You are the internal voice for developer clarity across every surface Sanas exposes externally.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of software engineering experience, with at least 2 years on developer‑facing products — APIs, SDKs, developer tools, or platform infrastructure.
• Has shipped a public‑facing SDK end‑to‑end — owned versioning, deprecation, and the full release lifecycle, not just contributed to one someone else designed.
• Can design a REST or WebSocket API from scratch — naming, error contracts, pagination, versioning — and has dealt with breaking API changes in production.
• Full‑stack capable: comfortable enough in React to build the Developer Console without a frontend specialist, while also owning the backend services behind it.
• Strong engineering taste — you know what great DX looks like and can enforce that bar in code review, API design, and SDK ergonomics even when you're not writing the prose.
• Comfortable making decisions, moving fast, and pulling in others when you need them.

Bonus

• Experience with real‑time audio, WebRTC, or streaming media APIs — Sanas's core product operates in real‑time voice pipelines.
• Prior work at a developer tools company, speech AI company, or infrastructure startup where developer experience was a first‑class concern.
• Familiarity with on‑device or edge deployment models — Sanas runs inference on‑device and in‑cloud; understanding that boundary helps with API and SDK design.
• Experience building or operating self‑serve developer portals with usage‑based billing, quota management, or tiered access.
• You've personally integrated a voice or audio SDK into a production product and know the friction points firsthand.