Backend Engineer - Voice Systems for Interactive AI Toys

About the Role

We are seeking a Backend Engineer - Voice Systems to join our innovative team at Curio Interactive. This remote backend engineer position focuses on building the infrastructure that powers our conversational experiences, allowing children to engage with Curio characters through real-time voice interaction. As a backend engineer, you will have a significant impact on our products, ensuring they are safe, imaginative, and enriching for kids.

What You'll Do

• Design, build, and scale backend systems that facilitate real-time voice interactions.
• Develop infrastructure for speech-to-text, text-to-speech, and conversational AI pipelines.
• Optimize latency and reliability for live voice experiences.
• Collaborate with AI, product, and hardware teams to integrate conversational features seamlessly.
• Own core services, APIs, and infrastructure, ensuring high performance and reliability.
• Contribute to system architecture and technical decisions, iterating rapidly on new features.

Requirements

• 3–8+ years of backend software engineering experience.
• Strong experience with TypeScript in production environments.
• Proven ability to design APIs and service-oriented architectures.
• Solid understanding of databases and data modeling, preferably with PostgreSQL.
• Experience writing efficient SQL queries and managing complex datasets.
• Familiarity with cloud infrastructure and distributed systems.
• Strong debugging, performance optimization, and systems design skills.
• Experience shipping production systems used by real users.

Nice to Have

• Experience with functional programming languages (e.g., F#, Scala, Haskell).
• Background in real-time systems, especially voice systems or audio processing.
• Experience building or working with AI-enabled systems.
• Ability to contribute to frontend or mobile applications (React Native, React, Next.js).
• Familiarity with reactive messaging queue systems (e.g., NATS, Kafka).

What We Offer

• Competitive salary ranging from $180K to $230K based on experience, plus equity.
• Unlimited PTO to promote work-life balance.
• Health and dental insurance coverage.
• In-office meals and snacks to keep you energized.
• Phone and commuter stipends to support your daily needs.

Join us at Curio Interactive, where you will have the opportunity to shape the future of AI-powered interactive toys. As a Backend Engineer - Voice Systems, you will work at the intersection of AI, voice technology, and storytelling, making a significant impact in the lives of children through innovative products.