EngineeringHybrid

Member of Technical Staff, Core Backend

Vapi · Hybrid

Apply

Last seen by MeritLog September 10, 2026Source: AshbySource version: ashby-public-job-posting-v1

MeritLog read this listing from Vapi's Ashby job board and last checked it on September 10, 2026.

Source: the employer's Ashby job board. Open the original listing for current details.

Job details

Work model: Hybrid
Salary: $180K - $265K
Location: San Francisco
Company website: www.daily.co

Hiring context

How this role compares at Vapi

Vapi has 35 live roles in MeritLog’s catalog across 8 job families, and 11 of them are in engineering. 34 of those listings publish a pay range, a disclosure rate of 97%.

This role's posted range of $180K - $265K sits above 55% of the 33 other Vapi roles quoted over the same currency and period.

Vapi concentrates this hiring in:

Counted across the job boards MeritLog tracks, at the time this page was served. Pay comparisons use only listings that publish a complete range in the same currency and period.

What the role asks for

What they're asking for

You’ve built real-time or streaming systems in production - media pipelines, streaming data, or event-driven backends. You’ve debugged a backpressure cascade.Skill
You have opinions on queue architecture (BullMQ, Kafka, Temporal) and when each is the right fit.Skill
You’ve built plugin or adapter architectures - extending base classes cleanly, with decoupled implementations.Skill
You’ve operated Postgres at scale: connection pooling, read replicas, schema migrations (Liquibase or similar).Skill
You instrument with OpenTelemetry and think in event-driven traces, not just logs.Skill
TypeScript + Node.js + NestJS. The codebase is huge NestJS, but a strong systems-thinking engineer ramps fast - language doesn’t gate the hire.SkillPreferred
Languages: TypeScript on Node.js (primary).SkillPreferred
Framework: NestJS (large codebase).SkillPreferred
Pipeline: StreamModule (VAD → STT → LLM → TTS → Transport), cork/uncork backpressure.SkillPreferred
Queues: BullMQ (current), Kafka (target - consolidation on roadmap), Temporal.SkillPreferred
Database: Postgres (connection pooling, read replicas), Liquibase for schema migrations.SkillPreferred
Plugin system: provider abstractions - LLM, STT, TTS base classes (pluggable, decoupled from model integrations).SkillPreferred
Observability: OpenTelemetry tracing, event-driven instrumentation.SkillPreferred

Parsed by MeritLog from the employer’s own posting. The full description follows below.

Job description

Vapi (/ˈVɑːpi/): - Voice AI that resolves, not transfers - Powering 1 billion calls for companies like Amazon Ring, Intuit, ServiceTitan, and New York Life - Trusted by 1 million developers building the future of voice agents - Backed by Peak XV, Bessemer, Kleiner Perkins, M12, Y Combinator, and more with $72M raised - Try talking to Vapi now! https://vapi.ai/ Why We’re Hiring This Role: The StreamModule pipeline - VAD → STT → LLM → TTS → Transport - runs on cork/uncork backpressure during live phone calls. A hundred milliseconds of delay is audible. This role owns pipeline stability and pluggability, so the agents and FDE teams can add new models and providers without touching core. You’ll consolidate BullMQ into Kafka, harden the provider abstractions (LLM, STT, TTS base classes), instrument the pipeline with event-driven OTEL tracing, and shore up the Postgres SPOFs that contributed to the Oct 15 and Oct 22 incidents. What You’ll Do: 30 Day: Ramp on the StreamModule pipeline and the cork/uncork backpressure model. Walk the Oct 15 / Oct 22 DB incidents and the duplicate-message incident. Land a scoped pipeline or provider-abstraction improvement. 60 Day: Own a slice of the BullMQ → Kafka consolidation. Ship event-driven OTEL instrumentation for at least one critical pipeline stage. Harden one provider plugin path so a new model can be added without core changes. 90 Day: Drive a measurable reliability or latency win on the call path. Be the backend owner that agents and FDE teams pull in for design reviews on new providers and pipeline changes. Who You Are: Must-haves: - You’ve built real-time or streaming systems in production - media pipelines, streaming data, or event-driven backends. You’ve debugged a backpressure cascade. - You have opinions on queue architecture (BullMQ, Kafka, Temporal) and when each is the right fit. - You’ve built plugin or adapter architectures - extending base classes cleanly, with decoupled implementations. - You’ve operated Postgres at scale: connection pooling, read replicas, schema migrations (Liquibase or similar). - You instrument with OpenTelemetry and think in event-driven traces, not just logs. Nice-to-haves: - TypeScript + Node.js + NestJS. The codebase is huge NestJS, but a strong systems-thinking engineer ramps fast - language doesn’t gate the hire. Tech stack you’ll work in: - Languages: TypeScript on Node.js (primary). - Framework: NestJS (large codebase). - Pipeline: StreamModule (VAD → STT → LLM → TTS → Transport), cork/uncork backpressure. - Queues: BullMQ (current), Kafka (target - consolidation on roadmap), Temporal. - Database: Postgres (connection pooling, read replicas), Liquibase for schema migrations. - Plugin system: provider abstractions - LLM, STT, TTS base classes (pluggable, decoupled from model integrations). - Observability: OpenTelemetry tracing, event-driven instrumentation. Where you likely come from: A streaming or real-time platform (Discord, Slack, Zoom, Twitch, Mux, LiveKit), an ML-infra company (Modal, Baseten, Replicate, Together), or a pipeline/workflow shop (Temporal, Stripe Radar, trading systems). Weak fit: backend engineer who’s only built systems where users don’t wait in real time (overnight jobs, reports, dashboards). Why Vapi: Generational impact: Build the human interface for every business Ownership culture: 70% of the company are previous founders Kind team: The founders, Jordan and Nikhil, are Canadians Tier-1 Investors: YC, KP seed, Bessemer Series A, Recent Series B raise What We Offer: Real stake: We offer a competitive salary and excellent equity ownership Comprehensive health coverage: medical, dental, and vision plans Team love: We love hanging out, and we do quarterly off-sites Flexible time off: take what you need More: catered meals, transportation, gym, and a $10k annual L&D budget

Keep exploring

More Engineering roles

Search all jobs