Backend Engineer - Palo Alto

Plaud • San Francisco, CA

8d • $159,000 - $219,000 • Hybrid

About The Position

Plaud is hiring a Backend Engineer to build and operate batch transcription and streaming automatic speech recognition (ASR) API services on its developer platform. The role owns the service stack from inference API design and model-service integration through authentication, rate limiting, versioning, and developer documentation. The engineer will deploy and operate speech-to-text services across four global regions, establish on-call operations and service-level objectives, and lead incident response and post-mortems. The position also involves designing high-concurrency, low-latency services and pipelines, optimizing cost and latency, supporting B2B customers, and collaborating with algorithm and product teams. The role is based in Palo Alto and follows a hybrid schedule requiring at least three days in the office per week.

Requirements

• At least 3 years of backend engineering experience and strong Go (Golang) proficiency, including shipping and operating production Go services.
• Production experience building and operating AI/ML-serving backend services, including inference API design, model-service integration, on-call duties, and incident response.
• Architecture experience with high-concurrency, low-latency platform services, including multi-region deployment, WebSocket and/or gRPC streaming or real-time protocols, asynchronous or queue-based job pipelines, and autoscaling.
• Experience designing and shipping public-facing APIs or SDKs, including authentication, rate limiting, versioning, and developer-facing documentation.
• Professional written and spoken English proficiency for developer documentation and direct B2B customer engagement.

Responsibilities

• Design, build, and ship batch transcription and streaming ASR API services on Plaud’s developer platform.
• Own the service stack, including inference API design, model-service integration, authentication, rate limiting, versioning, and developer documentation.
• Deploy and operate speech-to-text services across four global regions; establish on-call rotation, monitoring, alerting, and SLO governance; lead incident response and post-mortems.
• Architect high-concurrency, low-latency services, including streaming and real-time protocols, asynchronous batch-transcription pipelines, and autoscaling; optimize cost and latency and benchmark against inference API providers.
• Act as the primary technical point of contact for B2B customers on API capabilities, scoping and delivering feature requests on defined timelines.
• Collaborate with the algorithm team on ASR model integration and with product on the developer platform roadmap.
• Use AI tooling to accelerate development, documentation, and observability workflows.

Benefits

• Competitive base salary of $159,000–$219,000, performance bonus, and equity.
• Top-tier healthcare for employees and dependents, including dental and vision, with an employer subsidy.
• 401(k) plan with company matching for full-time employees.
• Unlimited paid time off and 13 paid holidays.
• 12 weeks of paid new-parent leave, regardless of gender.
• Choice of new top-of-the-line laptop and workstation setup.
• Office equipment, annual offsites, and free office drinks and snacks.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Mid Level
• Education Level: No Education Listed