Backend Engineer, Speak
$150-280k
+ Equity
3+ days a week in office
Language learning app
Open for applications
Language learning app
201-500 employees
Open for applications
$150-280k
+ Equity
3+ days a week in office
201-500 employees
Company mission
To reinvent the way people learn, starting with language.
Role
Who you are
- The ideal candidate will have experience working in close coordination with product, design, and machine learning teams, as well as have a background in building polished consumer applications
- 5+ years of industry experience working as a Backend Engineer, preferably in a fast-paced startup environment
- Bonus: worked on an app that has been used by 1M users
- Excellent problem-solving and communication skills, and the ability to work independently or as part of a team
- Coach and mentor other engineers
- Strong product sense: ability to think broadly/cross-functionally about product experiences
What the job involves
- We are looking for a senior backend focused but full-stack capable engineer to work on building novel AI-powered product experiences
- This role sits at the center of developing our newest products focused on programmatic, conversationally-driven language learning and will be an instrumental contributor to the future of our company
- Building novel AI-driven product experiences and user interfaces on the web
- Full-stack engineering, but focused on creating scalable backend systems
- Debugging complex streaming issues
- Owning the entire development cycle of features, from conception to production
- You'll be able to write code very quickly, ship frequently, and make a huge impact on our business by helping us scale our content
Our take
Language is one of the most powerful skills a person can learn. It helps us connect with people, understand different cultures, travel with confidence, and unlock new opportunities in life and work. But learning a language is often easier said than done. Traditional lessons are daunting and slow, not to mention expensive, and many people never get enough practice actually speaking out loud.
Speak is changing that by putting an AI language tutor right in your pocket. Instead of focusing on memorising endless vocabulary lists, Speak is built around real conversations. Learnings speak from the very beginning, receive instant feedback, and work through lessons designed to help them improve naturally over time. It brings the experience of practicing with a personal tutor to millions of people, making language learning more accessible.
That approach is clearly working too. Since launching in South Korea in 2019, Speak has now grown into the country's number one language learning app and now supports learners across more than 15 languages worldwide. Backed by leading investors, including OpenAI, Speak has become on of the world's leading AI language learning companies. And as AI becomes better at understanding and responding like a real conversation partner, Speak is in a good position to help even more people not just learn a language but become confident in it.
Kirsty
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Company
Funding (last 2 of 6 rounds)
Dec 2024
$78m
SERIES C
Jun 2024
$20m
SERIES B
Total funding: $165.9m
Company benefits
- Competitive salary and equity
- Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision insurance
- Unlimited PTO
- Parental leave
- 401(k)
- Monthly wellness stipend
- Monthly language learning stipend
Company HQ
Potrero Hill, San Francisco, CA
Leadership
Connor Zwick
(Co-Founder & CEO)Prior to co-founding Speak in 2016, Connor founded Flashcards+ where they served as the CEO until it was acquired by Chegg. They also served as the CEO at Coco Controller for nearly 3 years.
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