Software Engineer - Platform Media @ Descript

About the Role We are building the next-generation AI-powered platform and web application for easy and fast creation of audio and video content. Building a revolutionary way to record, transcribe, edit, and mix audio and video on the web comes with a series of unique technical challenges and requires solving hard and complex problems. We are looking for an experienced software engineer to build a best-in-class video editing and streaming platform to power the core editing and AI functionality of the app. What You’ll Do Design, build, and optimize scalable backend infrastructure to process, store, and serve real-time media processing pipelines and AI inference workloads efficiently. Collaborate closely with Product, AI Research, and Engineering teams to ensure our platform meets the evolving needs of advanced audio and video workflows. Build cutting edge model training and evaluation infrastructure. Evaluate, integrate, and optimize third-party AI vendor solutions, collaborating closely with Product Engineering and AI Research teams to enhance our AI capabilities and accelerate feature delivery. Make high-impact architectural decisions that balance short-term goals with long-term scalability, while mentoring teammates and championing engineering best practices. What You Bring 5+ years of professional backend software engineering experience. Experience with cloud infrastructure (GCP, AWS), modern data storage systems (S3, GCS, PostgreSQL, Dynamo/Bigtable), Linux, and data infrastructure (Airflow, Beam, Spark). Expertise in modern backend languages and technologies, such as Python, Typescript/Node.js, Go, or similar. Deep understanding of system design principles, performance optimization, and infrastructure automation (e.g., Temporal, Kubernetes, Docker). Solid CS fundamentals, including data structures, algorithms, databases (Postgres, BigQuery), and familiarity with monitoring and observability tools (metrics and distributed tracing). Strong written and verbal communication skills, along with good judgment in technical decision-making. Nice to Have Experience in AI and ML technologies (Pytorch, CUDA, distributed training). Expertise in digital media processing, codecs, and streaming technologies (ffmpeg,…

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