Senior Software Engineer (Tel Core)

Requirements

• We look for people who are intensely curious and hold themselves to a high bar. Our ambition is significant, and achieving it requires a team that operates at the highest level
• We seek individuals who embody our core traits: Scrappy, Curious, Optimistic, Persistent, and Empathetic
• We don’t mind if you come from a different engineering background or haven’t worked in real‑time media before. Just be excited to learn, to contribute to the team, and to build a fast, reliable, elegant product that delights our customers
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or equivalent practical experience
• 5+ years of software engineering experience, including owning substantial production backend systems in a SaaS or real‑time communications environment
• Demonstrated proficiency in coding with AI agents to accelerate development and improve code quality
• Deep expertise in C/C++ and Python
• Experience with (or strong interest in learning) SIP, WebRTC, RTP/RTCP, DTLS/SRTP, and media codec negotiation in a production setting
• Experience troubleshooting and improving real‑time media quality (e.g., jitter, packet loss, choppy audio, codec issues) is a strong plus
• Comfortable working on KTLO (bugs, refactors, upgrades) as well as strategic roadmap items, and using data to prioritize impact
• A deep understanding of reliability engineering, including the ability to build observability into services, eliminate performance bottlenecks, and manage the lifecycle of safe software releases
• A strong sense of urgency, personal agency, and customer empathy
• Passion for data driven decisions, building resilient systems, and solving classes of problems
• Don’t meet every single requirement? If you’re excited about this role and possess the fundamental traits, drive, and strong ambition we seek, but your experience doesn’t meet every qualification, we encourage you to apply

What the job involves

• As a Sr. Software Engineer on the Tel Core team, you are the steward of our media engine’s evolution. You will bridge the gap between high-level product goals and technical execution, ensuring our telephony stack remains resilient as we scale
• You’ll mentor peers and shape the long-term roadmap while fostering a culture of engineering excellence. Your success is defined by the seamless, high-quality audio experience of millions of users
• This position reports to an Engineering Manager in the Telephony Core team and has the opportunity to be based in either Vancouver or Kitchener, Canada locations
• Maintain and modernize the real-time services that run on the Telephony Engines. Architect backend libraries and APIs to integrate with the broader Telephony Platform
• Build and optimize low-latency media pipelines for voice and video—tuning codecs, RTP flows, and congestion-control behavior to deliver consistently clear conversations over unreliable networks
• Investigate and resolve complex production issues across PSTN, WebRTC, and carrier boundaries using Telephony Engine logs, PCAPs, observability tools, and data-driven experimentation
• Run load, failover, and regression tests on Telephony Engines and backend services to validate scalability, resilience, and capacity limits
• Partner with Tel Cloud, Tel Edge, Calling, and AI teams to design end-to-end call flows and integrations
• Participate in on-call and release rotations, owning Terraform- and GKE-backed rollouts, monitoring health, and driving follow-ups that continuously make the platform safer and easier to operate
• Shape the Tel Core roadmap by turning broad epics into clear designs and mentoring other engineers
• Our tech stack:
• C, C++, Python, Go, Lua
• Kubernetes, Redis, ElasticSearch, BigQuery
• Google Cloud Platform: Cloud Run, GKE, Datastore, Pub/Sub