Remote opportunity at
DescriptSoftware Engineer, Infrastructure
Descript seeks a Software Engineer for its Infrastructure team to build and manage the core foundation supporting the company's video and audio editing platform. Operating within…
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About This Role
Descript seeks a Software Engineer for its Infrastructure team to build and manage the core foundation supporting the company's video and audio editing platform. Operating within a small team, this position involves handling compute resources, deployment systems, system reliability, CI/CD pipelines, developer environments, security boundaries, and GPU infrastructure used for AI model training and inference. The ideal candidate will establish architectural standards rather than following existing industry templates, collaborate directly…
Job Description
Descript seeks a Software Engineer for its Infrastructure team to build and manage the core foundation supporting the company's video and audio editing platform. Operating within a small team, this position involves handling compute resources, deployment systems, system reliability, CI/CD pipelines, developer environments, security boundaries, and GPU infrastructure used for AI model training and inference. The ideal candidate will establish architectural standards rather than following existing industry templates, collaborate directly with peer engineering groups, balance system expenses as a key engineering constraint, and participate in an actionable on-call rotation. Descript operates as an early-stage company of 150 employees backed by prominent investors like OpenAI and Andreessen Horowitz, creating intuitive editing tools designed for the era of artificial intelligence.
Responsibilities
- Manage and improve company platform foundations including Google Cloud Platform, Kubernetes, Temporal, deployment and rollback machinery, and GPU fleets utilized in cloud export
- Oversee AI enablement infrastructure such as GPU capacity, model training and inference pipelines, system reliability, cost management, metering, and attribution
- Handle production security systems encompassing identity and access management, secret management, least-privilege boundaries, and supply chain integrity
- Write transparent infrastructure-as-code, clear runbooks, repository documentation, and diagnostic observability tools
- Participate in the on-call pager rotation to address and resolve incidents while striving to make the system quieter and more actionable
- Contribute to team growth through architectural guidance, code reviews, technical writing, and mentorship
Requirements
- Minimum of 8 years of experience building and operating production distributed systems or server-side engineering focused heavily on infrastructure
- Experience effectively utilizing AI agents as tools to multiply individual productivity
- Prior hands-on experience running systems where failures carried significant consequences
- Background carrying an incident pager, commanding incidents, and executing rollbacks
- Practical utilization of Service Level Objectives and error budgets as standard operating procedures
- Demonstrated production experience with a major cloud provider, Kubernetes, and infrastructure-as-code
- Proven ownership of an architecture or migration project from initial planning through launch
- Demonstrated ability to independently identify unowned problems, scope them out, gain consensus, and deliver solutions
Qualifications
- Experience with GPU and machine learning infrastructure covering capacity planning, training pipelines, inference serving, and latency or cost optimization
- Background in production security engineering including identity and access management, secrets handling, and supply chain security
- Familiarity with cloud cost modeling strategies, reserved instances, commitments, and unit economics
- Practical knowledge of CI/CD systems operating at monorepo scale along with developer environment tooling
- Previous exposure to video, media, or GPU-backed workloads
- Past experience working inside small engineering teams at companies ranging from Series B to Series D or on dedicated internal platform units
Core Skills
Benefits
- Base salary ranging from USD 220,000 to USD 292,000 per year
- Company equity
- Comprehensive healthcare package
- 401k matching program
- Catered lunches
- Flexible vacation time
Frequently Asked Questions
Answers are based only on the employer’s listing; where it doesn’t say, neither do we.
What is the salary range for the Software Engineer, Infrastructure role?
The base salary ranges from USD 220,000 to USD 292,000 per year, accompanied by equity and benefits. Final compensation depends on factors such as prior experience, expertise, location, and level.
Where is the position located?
Descript has its headquarters in San Francisco, CA, and this specific position is listed as remote with options for remote or hybrid setups.
What employment type is this role?
The posting specifies that this is a full-time position.
How can candidates apply or stand out during the application process?
Candidates can apply via the provided application link and are encouraged to include a share link to a Descript video about any topic, which guarantees a human review of their application.
Sample Interview Questions
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