Senior Software Engineer - Backend (Media Capture)

About Read AI:

At Read AI we’re redefining how teams collaborate by bringing intelligence to every conversation. Our platform supercharges productivity across meetings, messages, and email, so work gets done faster, smarter, and with better focus. We integrate seamlessly with tools like Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, Slack, and more, helping teams stay aligned and move forward, whether they’re in the same room or across time zones.

Backed by $81 million in funding from Smash Capital, Madrona, and Goodwater Capital, Read AI is growing. If you're excited to shape the future of AI-powered collaboration and want to make an impact at a product-focused startup, we’d love to meet you.

The Role:

The Media Capture Team owns the systems that capture and process the audio and video data fueling every downstream Read AI feature. As a Media Capture Engineer, you'll work across our meeting agents, media pipelines, and the live connections we manage with third-party meeting platforms like Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams.

You'll be a true jack of all trades: tackling dynamic, cross-disciplinary problems and applying your toolkit to a variety of projects, from designing scalable systems for live data capture to building the infrastructure that powers our meeting bots. You don't need to start as an expert in every tool or domain. Your creativity, adaptability, and curiosity will help you master what's needed to build robust, scalable solutions.

What You'll Do:

Live Media Pipeline

• Help design and build our next-generation live media pipeline, focused on low-latency handling of raw streaming data

• Contribute to features like live transcription and live notes that depend on this pipeline's speed and reliability

Meeting Agent & Platform Health

• Maintain and improve the meeting agents that join and capture Zoom, Meet, and Teams calls

• Debug and resolve edge cases in real-time connections with third-party meeting providers

• Build monitoring and alerting to catch issues before they affect users

Media Processing

• Tune FFmpeg/GStreamer processing pipelines for cost efficiency without sacrificing quality or latency

• Improve how raw audio/video is stored and handed off to downstream data consumers

Cross-functional Collaboration

• Work closely with product managers, designers, and other engineers to bring data-driven insights from concept to reality

• Translate complex technical issues for non-technical stakeholders

What We're Looking For:

• Proven experience building software solutions that perform at scale

• Technical breadth across more than one domain (backend, frontend, devops, or data engineering), with a willingness to dive into whatever needs solving

• Adaptability to learn new technologies and stacks as needed

• A problem-solving mindset driven by curiosity and creativity

• Resilience and self-reliance: comfortable operating with autonomy on ambiguous problems

• Strong communication skills across technical and non-technical audiences

• Note: Read AI does not provide visa sponsorship for this role

Nice to Have

• Experience with cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, or Azure), especially auto-scaling and resource optimization for large systems

• Proficiency with streaming protocols/standards (e.g., WebRTC, MoQ) and media processing libraries (e.g., FFmpeg, GStreamer)

• In-depth knowledge of HTML/CSS and browser rendering

• Prior experience in a startup or fast-growing environment

Why This Role Matters

Every feature Read AI ships, from meeting summaries to live notes, depends on the data this team captures. As we scale to millions of users and push into lower-latency live features, this role sits at the foundation of that growth. If you're excited by impactful work and eager to stretch your problem-solving abilities, we'd love to hear from you.

• Why Read AI?

  • Innovative: We bring AI to the masses with proactive technology that acts as the ultimate AI assistant. Built on our proprietary, patented technology, Read AI takes notes, surfaces information, facilitates collaboration, and learns you, making individuals and teams more effective.

  • Massive Impact: AI's greatest impact will be on the ability to allow people to do more, taking away mundane tasks, and guiding them to the next best action.

  • Growth Opportunities: Read AI is the fastest growing AI-copilot and meeting notetaker in history, and is one of the leading AI companies in the world, adding more than 1MM new customers every month. The company raised Series A and B in 2024, also was recognized as a Top Startup in Seattle by LinkedIn (2025), also notably a Top Company To Watch in 2025 by Inc Magazine, and is one of the Top AI Companies in Demand by Startups, according to a16z.

  • Leadership: Learn more about CEO and Co-Founder David Shim in this Fortune Good Life profile and listen to him share his vision for AI Agents, Digital Twins and the Future of Work. CTO and Co-Founder Rob Williams was recently anointed as one of the most disruptive leaders in AI. For more on our technology, Co-Founder and VP Data Science Elliott Waldron goes behind-the-scenes on our patents and models in this tech brief.

  • Collaborative Culture: Work in a supportive and collaborative environment with a diverse and talented team.

  Senior Software Engineer positions offer a base pay range of $180,000 - $210,000 plus equity and benefits. Please note that the base pay shown is a guideline, and individual total compensation will vary based on factors such as qualifications, skill level, competencies, and work location. We also offer low deductible health plans, as well as flexible time away and family leave programs.

  Please note our company does not provide visa support or sponsorship for employees.