Media Software Engineer, Speech (All Levels)

About Cantina: Cantina Labs is a social AI company, developing a suite of advanced real-time models that push the boundaries of expression, personality, and realism. We bring characters to life, transforming how people tell stories, connect, and create. We build and power ecosystems. Cantina, our flagship social AI platform, is just the beginning. If you're excited about the potential AI has to shape human creativity and social interactions, join us in building the future! About the Role: The Media Team at Cantina is building the real-time infrastructure powering live conversations between people and AI. Our goal is simple but technically challenging: make interacting with AI feel fast, natural, and truly conversational. We’re looking for a Software Engineer to help improve the speech, audio, and media systems at the heart of the Cantina experience. A major focus of this role is reducing latency and improving responsiveness so AI bots can hear users, process intent, and respond in real time — without awkward pauses or delays. This team works across everything from low-level media pipelines and WebRTC frameworks to globally distributed infrastructure supporting real-time voice and video interactions across iOS, Android, and web. If you’re excited by high-performance C++, real-time systems, speech technologies, and building the future of conversational AI, we’d love to talk. What You’ll Do: - Improve the real-time speech and media systems powering live AI conversations. - Reduce latency and optimize responsiveness across audio streaming and speech pipelines. - Build new voice and video capabilities that enable more immersive interactions between users and AI bots. - Improve and extend our custom WebRTC infrastructure across iOS, Android, and web. - Work closely with product and platform teams to shape the future of conversational AI experiences. What You’ll Bring: We welcome applicants across a wide range of experience levels, from new graduates to senior engineers. Responsibilities and leveling will be tailored to match the candidate’s background. These are the minimum qualifications: - BS or MS in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or a related field; or equivalent experience. - Excellent communications skills. - Experience with C or C++. - Strong computer science fundamentals, including familiarity with data structures and concurrent / multithreaded programming. - Exposure to system programming concepts, including network protocols; memory management; and distributed systems fundamentals. - Object-oriented programming and design skills. - Interest in solving challenging, subtle engineering problems. These are the preferred qualifications: - Previous experience with WebRTC, streaming protocols, or other media-related technologies. - Familiarity with audio or video processing techniques and algorithms. - Experience creating backend server infrastructure. - Experience developing software for iOS and Android. - Familiarity with building services using Node.js. - Familiarity with artificial intelligence and machine learning techniques, particularly in relation to speech recognition and synthesis. Location: While we offer fully remote and hybrid employment opportunities, our Media Engineering team strongly desires candidates to be available (or willing to relocate) to work in the Bay Area. For reference, 95% of the Media Engineering team works from the Bay Area. Compensation: The anticipated annual base salary range for this role is between $120,000-$180,000. When determining compensation, a number of factors will be considered, including skills, experience, job scope, location, and competitive compensation market data. Benefits: - Competitive salary and generous company equity - Medical, dental, and vision insurance – 99.99% of premiums covered by Cantina - 42 days of paid time off, including: - 15 PTO days - 10 sick days - 15 company holidays - 2 floating holidays - Generous parental leave & fertility support - 401(k) retire