Software Engineer - Platform

What You’ll Do

• Use of web technologies to deliver a high-performance professional creative tool that's traditionally been the domain of native desktop applications.
• Build v2 of our server and client platforms to turbocharge engineering productivity across Descript, allowing us to ship faster to our users.
• Build and deploy service infrastructure in support of Descript’s production services with emphasis on security, reliability, and scalability.
• Support observability of highly available services relied upon by our users to support its availability and performance through telemetry, alerts, and SLOs.

What You Bring

• 5+ years of professional software development experience
• You’re comfortable with uncertainty, maybe even thrive in it; you can take large projects and break them down into small, concrete features and then build those incrementally.
• Experience building and managing highly available distributed applications
• Proficiency in one or more programming languages like Typescript, Python, Go etc and technologies such as
  • Cloud infra platforms e.g. GCP, AWS, Azure
  • Databases e.g. PostGreSQL, Bigtable, BigQuery, Redis, etc.
  • Container runtimes e.g. Docker
• Strong written and verbal communication

Nice to Have:

• You know how to prioritize when everything is vying for your attention. Even if it means letting some fires burn while you put out more important ones.
• Experience with the following technologies
  • durable workflow platforms like Temporal
  • IaC tools like Terraform
  • Container orchestration platforms e.g. K8s
• Proficiency in database design, sharding, replication, and tuning for high-traffic environments
• Knowledge of CI/CD pipelines spanning code regressions, reproducible builds, and deployment strategies along with the associated infrastructure

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.