Staff Software Engineer - Fullstack

Technical Challenges at Descript

• Build best-in-class audio & video recording technology that works on web, desktop, and (eventually) mobile
• Design and build new tools for video editing that give users the same kind of “magic” that they’ve become used to for audio editing in Descript
• Reduce the the latency of multi-user collaboration to meet the standard set by other web-based collaborative tools
• Make Descript a web-first app by migrating systems that rely on native/Desktop integrations
• Improve the app’s performance during editing to make Descript’s performance indistinguishable from native competitors
• Architect a scalable backend infrastructure to quickly upload, process, and store large media files
• Build & maintain standards for interoperability among Descript & 3rd party tools

What You’ll Do

• Lead initiatives that impact the larger Engineering org and company, as well as own building and shipping new features across all levels of the stack (frontend and backend)
• Take shared ownership of the product process, and collaborate with product and design teams on crafting great user experiences
• Write high-quality testable code that's functional, long-term maintainable, and performant
• Provide mentorship, including to your more senior counterparts in your particular areas of expertise
• Contribute to high-level architectural decisions, and help to design scalable and efficient systems

What You Bring

• 7+ years of professional software development experience
• Experience in leading large scale projects involving complex architecture and scalable solutions
• Proficiency in modern technologies such as Typescript/Javascript/React/node.js/Go/Python
• Strong CS fundamentals and experience with web technologies (HTML/JS/CSS) and REST APIs
• Strong written and verbal communication
• Customer obsession - you care about providing a good user experience and ensure you fully understand user needs before diving into engineering solutions
• Good judgment in making tradeoffs to balance short-term needs with investing in long term foundation
• Self aware of strengths, and seeking to constantly learn and improve

Nice to Have

• Experience building creative tools
• Experience building and optimizing single-page web applications

At our current size and stage, we embrace a flat organizational structure and value the expertise and contributions of every team member. As such, we have a unified job title for our engineering roles where everyone, including those with Staff-level scope, is considered a Software Engineer. While titles may not change, we are actively seeking senior and above Software Engineers to join our team.

The base salary range for this role is $160,000- $230,000/year. Final offer amounts will carefully consider multiple factors, including prior experience, expertise, location, and may vary from the amount above.