Staff Software Engineer, Bots at Cantina

About Cantina: Cantina Labs is a social AI company, developing a suite of advanced real-time models that push the boundaries of expression, personality, and realism. We bring characters to life, transforming how people tell stories, connect, and create. We build and power ecosystems. Cantina, our flagship social AI platform, is just the beginning. If you're excited about the potential AI has to shape human creativity and social interactions, join us in building the future! About the Role: As a member of the Bots team, you will design, build, and scale systems that revolutionize how users engage with our cutting-edge AI-powered platform through all interactions and integrations related to AI Powered Bots. This work includes, but is not limited to, bot chat orchestration, AI Image Generation, AI Video Generation, and the tooling associated with managing these features. This role is ideal for a self-sufficient software engineer who thrives in fast-paced environments and is passionate about delivering core product functionality with a direct impact on our platform's capabilities and user experience. What You’ll Do: - Collaborate closely with cross-functional teams, including product managers, designers, and data specialists, to deliver high-quality, performant, and maintainable features. - Experiment with and integrate new AI image, video, and voice generation technologies used to bring AI characters to life - Build tooling and infrastructure around various AI technologies - Gain exposure to the architecture and operations behind one of the fastest-growing social AI products globally. - Contribute your expertise to help evolve team processes and technical infrastructure, ensuring scalability and reliability. What You’ll Bring: - Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field. - 8-10 years of professional software engineering experience, with expertise in backend and cloud architectures. - Proficiency in Go and AWS (ECS, S3, DynamoDB, SQS); experience with event-driven architectures using Kafka and Redis, and familiarity with MongoDB and PostgreSQL. - Solid understanding of domain-driven design, protobuf/Connect-RPC service patterns, and async pipeline orchestration. - Experience integrating external AI/ML APIs (image generation, video generation, LLM inference, TTS/voice) is a strong plus. - Strong communication skills and a collaborative, team-oriented mindset. Compensation: The anticipated annual base salary range for this role is between $230,000 - $290,000. When determining compensation, a number of factors will be considered, including skills, experience, job scope, location, and competitive compensation market data. Benefits: - Competitive salary and generous company equity - Medical, dental, and vision insurance – 99.99% of premiums covered by Cantina - 42 days of paid time off, including: - 15 PTO days - 10 sick days - 15 company holidays - 2 floating holidays - Generous parental leave & fertility support - 401(k) retirement savings plan - Lifestyle spending account – $500/month to use however you’d like - Complimentary lunch and snacks for in-office employees - One Medical membership, and more!