Staff Fullstack Software Engineer, Descript
$160-230k
More information about location
AI video & podcast editor
Job no longer available
AI video & podcast editor
101-200 employees
Job no longer available
$160-230k
More information about location
101-200 employees
Company mission
To make it easy for anyone o record, edit, and share any video.
Role
Who you are
- 7+ years of professional software development experience
- Experience in leading large scale projects involving complex architecture and scalable solutions
- Proficiency in modern technologies such as Typescript/Javascript/React/node.js/Go/Python
- Strong CS fundamentals and experience with web technologies (HTML/JS/CSS) and REST APIs
- Strong written and verbal communication
- Customer obsession - You care about providing a good user experience and ensure you fully understand user needs before diving into engineering solutions
- Good judgment in making tradeoffs to balance short-term needs with investing in long term foundation
- Self aware of strengths, and seeking to constantly learn and improve
Desirable
- Experience building creative tools
- Experience building and optimizing single-page web applications
What the job involves
- Build best-in-class audio & video recording technology that works on web, desktop, and (eventually) mobile
- Design and build new tools for video editing that give users the same kind of “magic” that they’ve become used to for audio editing in Descript
- Reduce the the latency of multi-user collaboration to meet the standard set by other web-based collaborative tools
- Make Descript a web-first app by migrating systems that rely on native/Desktop integrations
- Improve the app’s performance during editing to make Descript’s performance indistinguishable from native competitors
- Architect a scalable backend infrastructure to quickly upload, process, and store large media files
- Build & maintain standards for interoperability among Descript & 3rd party tools
- Lead initiatives that impact the larger Engineering org and company, as well as own building and shipping new features across all levels of the stack (frontend and backend)
- Take shared ownership of the product process, and collaborate with product and design teams on crafting great user experiences
- Write high-quality testable code that's functional, long-term maintainable, and performant
- Provide mentorship, including to your more senior counterparts in your particular areas of expertise
- Contribute to high-level architectural decisions, and help to design scalable and efficient systems
Our take
The rise of digital content has made video and audio creation more important than ever, but producing polished media can still be quite complex. Descript makes editing accessible to anyone, simplifying recording, editing, and publishing. And its platform empowers over 7M users to bring ideas to life without needing advanced technical skills.
Descript's standout feature is its AI co-editor, Underlord, which lets users create and edit videos just by describing what they want,. It can generate rough cuts, add visuals and B-roll, apply AI effects, and format content for social media. While many creators are still wary of AI in content creation, Descript has built its tools to augment human creativity, giving users control while handling the heavy lifting.
Serving millions of creators and businesses worldwide, Descript keeps innovating with AI features that learn from user input. By combining intuitive tools with responsible AI, the platform is helping content creators work faster and smarter, reshaping video and audio production while keeping the creative vision firmly in human hands.
Steph
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Insights
30% employee growth in 12 months
Company
Funding (last 2 of 4 rounds)
Oct 2022
$50m
SERIES C
Jan 2021
$30m
SERIES B
Total funding: $100m
Company benefits
- Health: We’ve got you covered with medical, dental, and vision benefits for all employees and their dependents. These include HMO and PPO healthcare plans
- Time off: Paid holidays are a given, but you can also expect flexible time off. Feel comfortable to take the time you need, when you need it.
- Parental leave: New parents receive paid parental leave to spend quality time with their expanding families.
- Home-office stipend: Get your work-from-home setup ready with our home-office stipend.
- Retirement: We offer a variety of retirement plans, including employer matching.
- Free food & refreshments: Come say hey! Visit our office for free lunch, snacks, and drinks.
- Destination off-sites: No matter where you work, you’ll get to know your team. We host two annual gatherings: a company-wide off-site and a team-specific off-site.
Company HQ
Civic Center, San Francisco, CA
Leadership
Laura Burkhauser
(CEO)Laura joined Descript in 2023 as a VP of Product and became CEO in 2025. Prior to this, she was a Director of Product Management at Twitter and Rent The Runway.
Salary benchmarks
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