Join the team


Making AI accessible

See Open Positions

We're headquartered in Rochester, NY. Our team's experience spans a variety of backgrounds and disciplines, from machine learning and math to non-profit and business. We work as a collaborative team that collectively does AI research and develops products that center accessibility.

  • We offer comprehensive health, dental, and vision insurance for you and your dependents.
  • Competitive salary and equity packages.
  • Flexible Hours
  • Paid Time Off
The interview process at Sign-Speak changes based on role and candidate, but our standard process looks like this:

Step 1:
Submit your resume via our website
Step 2:
You’ll have a chat with one of our staff to discuss your career interests and relevant experience, and learn more about Sign-Speak story.
Step 3:
For technical roles, you’ll have a thirty-minute technical screening interview with our CTO. For operations or policy roles, you’ll get a take-home assignment. These typically involve writing responses to several role-relevant questions; they may occasionally require some outside research. Assignments usually take between 2-5 hours, depending on the role. We include this to minimize bias and make well-informed hiring decisions. We think seeing a candidate’s work helps us assess how they might actually perform on the job; similarly, the assignment gives candidates a better idea of what their work at Sign-Speak might entail. We recognize that completing work assignments requires time and effort, and that they are not perfectly reflective of the role’s work. Nonetheless, we think that work tests are a useful complement to interviews and reference checks.
Step 4:
For technical roles, you’ll have 1-2 more one-hour technical interviews, plus a culture interview. For operations or policy roles, you’ll have 1-3 hours of interviews, including a culture interview.
Step 5:
We’ll ask for some references and check them. Please note that you can ask us any questions at any point within this process.
Step 6:
We’ll make you an offer!

Things to keep in mind:
  • We have several brilliant colleagues who never went to college or are college dropouts. So we do not require a degree for you to apply to any position.
  • We currently do not offer internships.
  • If you’ve done interesting independent research, written an insightful blog post, or made substantial contributions to open-source software, put that at the top of your resume!
  • All our interviews are conducted remotely. We prefer EST office hours, but we can be flexible if that’s difficult for you.
  • If interviews don’t work out this time, you’re welcome to re-apply after 12 months, and earlier if something materially changes about your experience or skills.
  • If we make an offer, we’re happy to give you time to think about it and finish up any other interview processes you’re going through.
Open Positions

Job Summary

Backend engineers manage all of our tech infrastructure, from our cutting edge AI communication system to machine learning pipeline and our data collection platform. Our infrastructure moves fast and changes rapidly with strong requirements on reliability, throughput, and e2e latency. We don’t particularly care what technical stack you’re most familiar with as long as you are familiar with a standard tech stack (we’ll teach you the rest!). However, it is important to be ready for intense onboarding. We would like to get you, within the human ability to do so, up and running ASAP.


Compensation

Base Salary: $120,000 - $150,000


Additional Benefits

Health insurance, Stock options, Professional development support


Company Description

Sign-Speak is a fast-growing startup that's on a mission to improve communication between the Deaf and Hard of Hearing communities and the hearing world. Our innovative language software recognizes Sign Language and translates it into spoken word, and vice versa, using Machine Learning. We're proud to have recently raised our first institutional round of funding and received an NSF grant, and we're poised for rapid growth.


At Sign-Speak, we're a fun and compassionate team, but we're also extremely hard-working. We're looking for individuals who are as dedicated to our mission as we are and who are willing to put in the effort to help us achieve our goals. If you're a highly skilled and motivated software engineer who's passionate about using technology to make the world a more accessible place, then we want to hear from you


As part of our team, you'll have the opportunity to work with cutting-edge technology, collaborate with a diverse and talented group of individuals, and make a real difference in people's lives. We offer a dynamic and supportive work environment that values innovation, creativity, and teamwork. If you're ready to join a team that's making a real impact in the world, then we want you to be a part of Sign-Speak.


Key Responsibilities

  • Developing and maintaining our backend systems and core infrastructure
  • Expanding our systems per product requirements
  • Writing and executing design documents
  • Analyzing Latency to find bottlenecks and inefficiencies within our batch and realtime jobs performed by our system
  • On-Call rotations

Qualifications and Preferred Areas of Technical Experience

  • Degree or relevant experience within the field
  • Concurrent and distributed systems
  • System architecture
  • Databases
  • Devops
  • Containerization and Orchestration
  • Security
  • AI/ML
  • 3D Graphics and Rendering Systems
  • Willingness to learn and work in a fast-paced environment
  • Some knowledge of the D/HH community is always preferred (but if you don’t know this, we’ll teach you!)

Location

Preferred: Rochester, New York


Equipment, Machines, and Software Used

This position requires the constant use of a computer, keyboard, mouse, etc. Must have a strong internet connection. Sign-Speak will provide a work-issued laptop and monitor.


Disclaimer

All requirements are subject to possible modification to reasonably accommodate individuals with disabilities.
This description in no way states or implies that these are the only duties to be performed by the employee(s) or contractors occupying this position.
Employees or contractors will be required to follow any other position-related instructions and to perform any other position-related duties requested.
The firm reserves the right to add to or revise an employee or contractor’s duties at any time at its sole discretion.
This document does not create an employment contract, implied or otherwise, other than an “at will” employment relationship.
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