Joblaze summary

In the role of Staff Software Engineer for Voice Agent at Decagon, the individual will lead the design and enhancement of the company's voice platform, focusing on improving audio quality and responsiveness in real-time systems. Key skills include expertise in streaming pipelines and audio applications, along with a strong background in technical leadership and debugging. This position is ideal for seasoned engineers with a passion for mentoring and setting high engineering standards. Decagon's Voice Agent team operates in a fast-paced environment, tackling some of the most complex challenges in conversational AI.

Joblaze insights

Listed about a month ago — first seen on Joblaze September 3, 2026. Last confirmed on Decagon's careers page October 27, 2026.
Salary band is in line with the typical range for AI/ML roles (median ~$190,000).
Starts above 28% of 193 comparable staff ai/ml roles in United States we track (median $228,600 across 56 companies).

Quick facts

Is the Staff Software Engineer, Voice Agent role remote?: No — this is an on-site role in San Francisco.
What's the salary range?: Decagon lists $200,000–$400,000 for this role.
How much experience is required?: At least 8 years of relevant experience for this Staff Software Engineer, Voice Agent role.
Where is the role based?: Decagon is hiring for this position in San Francisco.
What's the tech stack?: Joblaze extracted these technologies from the posting: LLM-driven applications, Real-time Systems, Speech Recognition, VAD, audio-based applications, streaming pipelines.
What seniority level is this role?: Decagon targets staff-level candidates for this position.
Is this full-time or contract?: Full-time for this Staff Software Engineer, Voice Agent role at Decagon.

From the original posting

About the Team

The Voice Agent team builds the real-time systems that allow Decagon agents to carry natural conversations across our omnichannels (phone, web, mobile, etc). We work across speech understanding, audio streaming, synthesis quality, and the voice specific execution logic that enables timing, pacing, and responsive dialogue.

Our systems must remain accurate, responsive, and stable at scale. Voice is one of the most technically challenging surfaces in conversational AI, and our small team owns this entire capability end-to-end.

About the Role

As a Staff Software Engineer focused on Voice Agent, you will lead the architecture and evolution of Decagon’s voice platform. You will drive multi-quarter projects that improve timing, responsiveness, audio quality, and reliability across millions of interactions.

You will collaborate with Research to integrate the next generation of speech models, with Infra to push the boundaries of latency and performance, and with Product to bring new voice capabilities to customers. You will help set engineering standards for voice, mentor senior engineers, and raise the technical bar for one of Decagon’s most important surfaces.

In this role, you will

Own the architecture of Decagon’s real-time voice runtime and shape its long-term roadmap
Lead initiatives that improve speech understanding, synthesis quality, and conversational timing
Define reliability, testing, and observability standards for live voice interactions
Build frameworks that make voice systems easy to debug, measure, and iterate on
Mentor senior engineers and help expand the technical culture of the Voice group

Your background looks something like this

8+ years of engineering experience with significant technical leadership
Expertise in real-time systems, streaming pipelines, or audio-based applications
Ability to define architectural direction and lead cross-functional projects
Strong debugging skills across audio, networking, and model-driven systems
Experience mentoring engineers and influencing engineering standards

Even better if you have

Experience with speech recognition or synthesis systems
Experience with VAD, streaming protocols, or other real-time audio systems
Experience designing or maintaining LLM-driven applications
Experience optimizing performance for low-latency use cases

Compensation

$200K – $400K + Offers Equity

This range reflects the expected compensation for this role. Compensation within the range is determined based on experience, skills, and the scope of responsibilities, with flexibility for candidates who demonstrate exceptional impact.

In addition to base salary, we offer competitive equity. Final compensation may vary based on location within the United States.

Medical, Dental, and Vision benefits for you and your family
Life Insurance and Disability Benefits
Retirement Plan (e.g., 401K, pension)
Parental Leave
Fertility and family building benefits through Carrot

Standard company text repeated across Decagon's postings is omitted here.

Staff Software Engineer, Voice Agent

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