Senior Voice & Video Platform DSP Engineer

Nextiva is building a next-generation voice and video platform to power our Unified Communications (UCaaS) and Contact Center (CCaaS) products. This platform blends open-source components with in-house innovation to deliver carrier-grade quality and 99.999% uptime. We need a Software Engineer to drive development of real-time voice/video services, enhancing call quality and reliability and enabling AI-powered voice features on our unified customer experience (UCXM) platform. You will work on everything from media servers and audio processing to cloud deployment, ensuring our system is scalable, secure, and high performing. We operate with a DevOps culture – engineers own their code from development through production

Key Responsibilities

• Develop Core Communication Services: Build and maintain backend services for voice/video calling (signaling servers, call routing logic, media gateways) using SIP and WebRTC. Implement features like call setup, conferencing, transfers, and recording with a focus on efficiency and reliability.
• Enhance Audio Quality (DSP): Implement and tune digital signal processing algorithms for superior call audio. This includes noise suppression, echo cancellation, jitter buffer optimization, and voice activity detection to ensure crystal-clear, uninterrupted communication even on poor networks.
• Optimize Media & Codecs: Work with real-time media streaming (RTP) and various codecs (Opus, G.711, H.264, etc.). Optimize codec configurations and adapt bitrates on the fly based on network conditions to balance quality and bandwidth.
• Integrate Voice AI Features: Embed speech-to-text (ASR) and text-to-speech (TTS) capabilities into the platform. Enable AI voice agents to participate in calls by streaming audio to AI services and injecting synthesized speech responses. Manage conversation flow between humans and AI (handling interruptions, timing responses) to make interactions feel natural.
• Ensure Scalability & Resilience: Design services with a cloud-native approach (microservices, containers) for deployment on Kubernetes. Implement high-availability strategies (clustering, failover) across global data centers so that the platform achieves five-9s uptime with no downtime for maintenance.
• Performance & Reliability Tuning: Continuously profile and improve system performance end-to-end. Minimize call setup times and audio latency through efficient coding (C/C++ for media processing) and system optimizations.
• DevOps & Support: Use CI/CD pipelines to deploy updates safely with zero downtime. Write comprehensive automated tests (unit, integration, load) for your features. Participate in on-call rotation to troubleshoot and resolve production issues in real time, and implement lasting solutions to prevent recurrence.
• Collaboration: Work closely with Product Managers, front-end teams, AI/ML team and with network engineers.

Qualifications

• Real-Time Communications: 5+ years of experience developing VoIP or real-time communication systems. Strong knowledge of SIP protocol, WebRTC, and related networking (RTP, NAT traversal). Proven ability to implement call logic and troubleshoot signaling and media issues.
• Audio/DSP Expertise: Hands-on experience with audio processing in real time. Familiarity with noise reduction, echo cancellation, jitter buffers, and other voice QoS techniques. Comfort optimizing or using audio codecs (Opus, G.711, etc.) and improving call quality under varying network conditions.
• Strong Coding Skills: Proficiency in C/C++ for high-performance, multi-threaded systems programming. Experience writing efficient, low-latency code (lock-free structures, memory management). Additionally, skilled with a higher-level language like Go or Java for building microservices and control logic.
• Cloud & Scalability: Experience building and deploying services in a cloud-native environment (Docker, Kubernetes). Knowledge of designing scalable microservices and using cloud infrastructure (AWS, GCP, or Azure) for load balancing, monitoring, and fault tolerance.
• Voice AI Familiarity: Exposure to integrating speech recognition and text-to-speech in applications. You’ve perhaps worked with voice assistants, IVR systems, or call center AI – you understand basic latency/accuracy trade-offs and how to interface with speech APIs/SDKs.
• Security & Compliance: Basic understanding of securing voice communications (TLS, SRTP) and safeguarding customer data (GDPR, HIPAA considerations for call recordings, etc.). Designs solutions with privacy and security best practices in mind.
• DevOps Mindset: Comfortable using CI/CD, infrastructure-as-code, and logging/monitoring tools. Willing to take ownership of code in production – debugging live issues, optimizing resource usage, and responding to incidents.
• Team Player: Excellent collaboration and communication skills. Experience working in Agile teams. Ability to clearly document designs and mentor others. A proactive attitude to problem-solving and an enthusiasm for continuous learning in the fast-evolving communications and AI field.

Nextiva DNA (Core Competencies)

Nextiva’s most successful team members share common traits and behaviors:

• Drives Results: Action-oriented with a passion for solving problems. They bring clarity and simplicity to ambiguous situations, challenge the status quo, and ask what can be done differently. They lead and drive change, celebrating success to build more success.
• Critical Thinker: Understands the "why" and identifies key drivers, learning from the past. They are fact-based and data-driven, forward-thinking, and see problems a few steps ahead. They provide options, recommendations, and actions, understanding risks and dependencies.
• Right Attitude: They are team-oriented, collaborative, competitive, and hate losing. They are resilient, able to bounce back from setbacks, zoom in and out, and get in the trenches to help solve important problems. They cultivate a culture of service, learning, support, and respect, caring for customers and teams.

Total Rewards

Our Total Rewards offerings are designed to allow Nexties to take care of themselves and their families so they can be their best, in and out of the office.

Our compensation packages are tailored to each role and candidate's qualifications. We consider a wide range of factors, including skills, experience, training, and certifications, when determining compensation. We aim to offer competitive salaries or wages that reflect the value you bring to our team. Depending on the position, compensation may include base salary and/or hourly wages, incentives, or bonuses.

The expected hiring range is $100,000 - $180,000. A different level in the job hierarchy may apply to a specific candidate, resulting in a different hiring range.

• Health 🍏 - Multiple health plan options to suit your needs, including medical, dental, vision, and telemedicine coverage
• Insurance 💼 - Life, disability, and supplemental indemnity plans
• Work-Life Balance ⚖️ - Flexible Time Off (FTO) for salaried employees, PTO for hourly employees, Paid Sick Time (PST), paid parental bonding leave, and paid holidays
• Financial Security 💰 - 401(k) with company match, Health Savings Accounts with company contributions, Dependent Care FSA
• Wellness 🤸‍ - Employee Assistance Program and comprehensive wellness initiatives
• Growth 🌱 - Access to ongoing learning and development opportunities and career advancement

At Nextiva, we're committed to supporting our employees' health, well-being, and professional growth. Join us and build a rewarding career!

Nextiva is an equal opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees. We prohibit discrimination and harassment of any type without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local laws. Nextiva participates in the E-Verify Program where and as required by law. For additional information about E-Verify visit USCIS.

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