Modulate is the leader in conversational voice intelligence. We enable platforms and enterprises to deeply understand how people communicate and take timely action based on those insights.
Our products help detect harm, prevent fraud, and build safer, more trusted online and real-world voice environments. We are building a self-serve Conversation Intelligence Platform—APIs, workflows, and applications that bring voice understanding to customers at enterprise scale.
We're looking for a Staff Fullstack Engineer with a strong backend focus to help build and scale the systems that power our Developer and Enterprise APIs. While you'll work across the stack when needed, the majority of your time will be spent designing, building, and scaling backend services that bring our ML-powered voice technology to customers.
Your Impact
We're looking for a Staff Engineer to help architect, scale, and evolve our core product platform as we grow into new markets and customer segments.
You'll be a technical leader and systems thinker working across the stack in an environment built on quick iteration, where engineers operate with a high degree of ownership and independence.
This role is best suited to someone who can take an ambiguous customer problem, scope a sharp solution, and ship it end to end — and whose work raises the bar for the whole team.
What You'll Do
- Own features from ambiguous problem statement through design, implementation, deployment, and customer feedback — partnering with product and fellow engineers along the way, across the stack as needed.
- Exercise strong scoping judgment: deliver high-quality features quickly while making deliberate, well-understood trade-offs.
- Set the technical quality bar for the team through your own work.
- Improve engineering workflows and tooling to make delivery faster for everyone.
- Make pragmatic technology choices that fit the problem at hand.
- Multiply the team through design feedback, code review, and mentorship without adding process for its own sake.
- Partner directly with product and customers to shape what we build next.
What We're Looking For
- 8+ years of software engineering experience across multiple layers of the stack, with a strong record of technical ownership and shipped impact.
- A track record of taking products or major features from zero to customers — ideally in startups or environments with quick iteration cycles.
- Excellent judgment about scope: you know when good enough is right, when quality is non-negotiable, and how to tell the difference.
- Strong systems thinking spanning backend services, APIs, data persistence, and the interfaces that connect them.
- Comfort with ambiguity and independence — you don't need a spec, a ticket, or permission to do the right thing.
- Clear, direct communication with engineers, product leaders, and customers alike.
Nice to Have
- Experience with cloud infrastructure (AWS preferred), infrastructure-as-code, and DevOps practices.
- Experience productionizing ML models or building on ML-powered APIs, especially audio/voice.
- Experience in developer-facing API products, gaming, or trust & safety.
At Modulate, we prioritize people and sustainability—because doing great work requires feeling supported and safe.
Some of our key benefits include:
- Competitive salary + equity
- Full health, dental, and vision coverage
- Flexible PTO, with a strong culture of taking it
- Weekly team lunches with dietary accommodations
- Hybrid work: core in-office days with flexible remote options
- Regular leadership and industry learning sessions
- Support for career development and continued learning
- Up to 8 weeks work-from-anywhere policy
- A deeply inclusive, human-centered culture
Modulate believes in transparency as a cornerstone of equity and trust. Compensation for this role is based on seniority, skills, and experience.
Salary: $170,000–$200,000
Equity: Offered
Other Perks: HSA, FSA, 15 company holidays, professional growth resources
Modulate is on a mission to make voice a force for good online. Our tools help communities thrive by proactively detecting toxic behavior, protecting user identity, and empowering safety teams. We're trusted by leaders in gaming and beyond—and we're growing fast.
We believe great cultures don't just happen. That's why we've built a foundation of intentional systems: from bias-reducing hiring practices to transparent pay to tools that help teams collaborate across communication styles. At Modulate, we treat people like people—and we're building technology that does the same.
Ready to join us? Apply today—we'd love to meet you.
Skills Required
- Strong experience with object-oriented Python
- Experience designing and building production-grade APIs and backend systems
- Fullstack engineering experience with a clear strength and passion for backend development
- Experience building greenfield products and scaling existing production systems
- Strong understanding of system architecture, scalability, and distributed systems
- Proven ability to collaborate effectively across engineering teams
- Experience shipping products from concept to production
- Experience with cloud infrastructure and containerized environments
- Experience working alongside ML or AI teams
- Experience with React or other modern frontend frameworks
- Experience building developer platforms or enterprise products
What We Do
Modulate designs and builds prosocial voice intelligence, empowering platforms to transform voice interactions into safe, trustworthy experiences. Our flagship product, ToxMod, is a proactive voice moderation system that goes beyond keyword scanning. Utilizing layered machine learning models—designed to detect emotional tone, speech patterns, conversational context, and intent—ToxMod identifies toxic behaviors as they occur. This nuanced approach allows moderators and trust-and-safety teams to intervene before harm escalates, not after, significantly reducing negative interactions in real time. As of October 2024, ToxMod has moderated over 160 million hours of voice data, resulting in more than 80 million moderator interventions that make online environments safer and more welcoming for users. While gaming was our launchpad, ToxMod now extends its protection into gig economy and customer service platforms. With Confidential Connect, platforms can safeguard privacy by anonymizing phone interactions and surfacing actionable insights when harm or fraud is detected in voice communication. Our modular model architecture—with specialized detectors for emotion, deception, harassment, phishing, and more—is both highly accurate and explainable. This allows for rapid adaptation: when collaborating with a gig platform in early 2024, we stood up a fraud-detection module within a month using the same system. Beyond voice safety, Modulate empowers platforms with compliance support and community health strategies. Our tools drive insights for transparency reporting, code-of-conduct alignment, and evolving regulatory needs—like those shaped by AI policy, trust and safety frameworks, and user privacy laws. In summary: Modulate transforms voice—from chat, phone, or AI agent—to an asset for trust, safety, and user well-being. We're building tools that don’t just respond to harm—they anticipate it. Whether it’s protecting gamers, customer-care agents, gig workers, or social communities, Modulate empowers platforms to safeguard human connection in the voice-first era.
Why Work With Us
Modulate stands out by combining real-time voice‑native AI with a mission-driven focus on safety, inclusion, and explainability. Working here means building cutting-edge, trust-first technology that protects real communities—while growing in a transparent, people-centered culture that values impact just as much as innovation.
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