Lead Engineer, Canary Technologies
Providing hospitality technology
Open for applications
Providing hospitality technology
201-500 employees
Open for applications
201-500 employees
Company mission
To help hoteliers thrive through innovative software solutions.
Role
Who you are
- 8+ years of a strong engineering background
- 2+ years of proven experience of leading successful engineering teams
- Solid knowledge of developing backend applications
- Hands-on experience building real-time or streaming systems — voice, audio, video, or low-latency event-driven services
- Have a strong demonstrated ability to ship high-quality products that operate reliably at scale
- Self-motivated, collaborative, and diligent work ethic
- Excellent communication skills. You love being part of a diverse team, building consensus, and establishing credibility. You are a Class-A communicator: curious, thoughtful, clear, and (mostly) correct
- Comfort with ambiguity and is eager to embrace ownership and accountability
- Bonus: Experience with conversational AI, LLM agent frameworks (e.g. LiveKit Agents, Pipecat), telephony (Twilio, SIP), ASR/TTS providers (Deepgram, ElevenLabs, Cartesia), or evaluations / testing harnesses for agentic systems
What the job involves
- We're looking for a Lead Engineer to drive the next phase of Canary's Voice AI product — the platform that handles guest calls for hotels end-to-end, from reservations and modifications to service requests and intelligent transfers
- You'll own the architecture of a real-time, telephony-grounded system
- You'll lead a pod of engineers, set the bar as a hands-on IC, and partner closely with Product to ship voice experiences that operate reliably at scale across major hospitality brands
- The systems you design will speak directly to guests, so passion and discipline around quality, latency, and operational excellence are essential
- Directly manage a pod of engineers responsible for Canary's Voice AI product, including inbound call handling, reservation booking and modification flows, service request creation, and intelligent call transfer
- Set an example as an IC in terms of both the quality and velocity of code that you ship
- Own the architecture and its evolution across telephony integrations (Twilio, Bandwidth, etc), real-time AI components (Deepgram, ElevenLabs, OpenAI), and integration points with PMS Gateway, CRS Gateway, and the Ticket Gateway
- Drive measurable improvements in call containment, transfer quality, latency, and cost-per-call by deeply understanding metrics and how hotels and guests use the product
- Partner closely with Product Managers to inform roadmap and prioritization, with a strong voice on product decisions for the Voice AI surface area
- Independently mentor and advise engineers in the pod, and build engineering execution plans, break down work, and assign it across the team
- Run pod processes autonomously and escalate appropriately when required
- Participate in hiring and interviewing for the Voice AI team and broader engineering org
Our take
Embracing the modern era, Canary Technologies is dedicated to revolutionising the hotel industry through digital transformation. Pioneering the field with its mobile web-based Guest Management System and Digital Authorisation solutions, Canary aims to rid hotels of outdated technology, enhancing revenue streams by boosting staff productivity and delivering superior guest experiences.
Co-founders Harman and SJ, childhood friends turned business partners, bring a unique blend of expertise to the table, drawing from their extensive background in both hospitality and technology sectors. With the industry already on an upward trajectory, the post-pandemic landscape has further fueled the demand for their solutions, particularly their contactless check-in and checkout offerings.
Despite competition in the sector, Canary has secured significant funding led by Insight Partners, enabling rapid expansion and talent acquisition to meet the burgeoning demand for its innovative solutions.
Freddie
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Insights
59% employee growth in 12 months
Company
Funding (last 2 of 5 rounds)
Jun 2025
$80m
SERIES D
Jun 2024
$50m
SERIES C
Total funding: $175.2m
Company benefits
- Our health insurance has you covered on day 1
- Flexible working hours
- Training and career development
- Regular team building events
- A travel stipend for when you stay at Canary hotels
- Internal promotions from within the team
- Kitchen stocked with fruit, snacks, coffee, and more
- We're a diverse and global team
Company HQ
Financial District, San Francisco, CA
Leadership
Harman Singh Narula
(Co-Founder & CEO)Previously founded a custom printed apparel company, The Shirt Guys, LLC. Worked in strategy for Citigroup and Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Inc, and as a Management Consultant for Bain & Company.
Satjot "SJ" Sawhney
(Co-Founder & President)Previously co-founded Mobibolt, Inc and Tapfame before serving as Head of Product at the hospitality technology startup, Stayful.
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