Mission

Speechify is the easiest way to listen to the world’s information. Articles on the web, documents in the cloud, books on your phone. We absorb it all and let you listen to it at your desk, on the go, at your own speed, and with tools that make learning easier, deeper, and faster.

What streaming services have done for audio entertainment, we’re doing for audio information. And whatever we’re doing seems to be working. We’re #1 in our category, and experiencing exponential growth.

Overview

We're looking for a Senior Software Engineer to join our Core Experiences Team. This team builds and maintains the foundational services and SDKs that power Speechify’s product experience across platforms. It's a critical role for someone who enjoys working at the intersection of product and infrastructure, thinks strategically, and is passionate about designing clear, reliable APIs and simple systems that directly enhance the user experience.

What You’ll Do

• Collaborate with Speechify’s Product Teams to scope projects, find ways to reduce scope to get faster feedback from customers, navigate the integration/UX tradeoffs relevant to different product teams, and deliver solutions via our cross-platform SDK
• Optimize existing functionality to ship things like faster loading and more intelligent parsing by designing more efficient abstractions and improving our algorithms
• Ship cloud functions, lightweight backend services, and jobs using Kotlin

An Ideal Candidate Should Have

• Systems thinking. You know that optimizing a system requires end-to-end design, and you believe simplicity is valuable.
• Speed. You work quickly to generate ideas and options and know how to decide which things can ship now and what things need time
• Focus. We’re a high-growth startup with a busy, remote team. You know how and when to engage or be heads down
• Collaboration. You know how to inspire, play, and negotiate with opinionated designers, marketers, and PMs
• Preferred Tech Stack:
  • Kotlin Multiplatform (Java experience is OK but role is Kotlin Multiplatform) 
  • Prior experience with GCP is a plus

What We Offer

• A fast-growing environment where you can help shape the company and product.
• An entrepreneurial-minded team that supports risk, intuition, and hustle.
• A hands-off management approach so you can focus and do your best work.
• An opportunity to make a big impact in a transformative industry.
• Competitive salaries, a friendly and laid-back atmosphere, and a commitment to building a great asynchronous culture.
• Opportunity to work on a life-changing product that millions of people use.
• Build products that directly impact and support people with learning differences like dyslexia, ADD, low vision, concussions, autism, and more.
• Work in one of the fastest growing sectors of tech, the intersection of artificial intelligence and audio.

Think you’re a good fit for this job? 

Tell us more about yourself and why you're interested in the role when you apply.
And don’t forget to include links to your portfolio and LinkedIn.

Not looking but know someone who would make a great fit? 

Refer them! 

Speechify is committed to a diverse and inclusive workplace. 

Speechify does not discriminate on the basis of race, national origin, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, protected veteran status, disability, age, or other legally protected status.

Location: This role is fully remote but must be available to meet with East Africa timezone by at least 2 hours a couple of times a week. We are unable to sponsor or take over sponsorship of employment Visas in the U.S. or U.K. at this time.

About this role

Technology plays a central role in how GiveDirectly delivers cash—whether that’s identifying recipients in hard-to-reach places, sending payments quickly after disasters, or powering the platforms our donors use to give.

We’re hiring a Senior Software Engineer to help build the systems behind this work. Our engineering team still operates like a startup within GiveDirectly—lean, fast-moving, and high-autonomy. You’ll lean into product thinking, help shape the roadmap, and collaborate closely across disciplines to solve real-world problems. The specific team you’ll join is still being finalized—it could be:

• Our Programs Engineering team (getting cash in the hands of people experiencing extreme poverty),
• Our Fundraising Engineering team (raising more money for recipients), or
• Our International Rapid Response team (getting cash to disaster-affected communities within 5 days of a crisis—anywhere in the world)

No matter the team, you’ll play a central role in scaling our impact: getting more money, to more people, more efficiently.

This is a hands-on role with real ownership. You’ll help shape architecture, ship production-ready code, and work side-by-side with teammates across product, data, and operations. We’re looking for someone excited to wear multiple hats, move quickly, and define what great engineering looks like in a mission-driven org

Level: Senior Software Engineer

Travel Requirement: Must be able to travel ~1-2 times per year to one of our countries of operation for team retreats or field visits.

What you’ll do:

• Design and build scalable, reliable systems that power our core operations—whether that’s donor platforms, systems that deliver payments directly to recipients, or crisis response tools reaching hundreds of thousands of people globally.
• Own end-to-end development of new features and services, from architecture through deployment and monitoring.
• Improve our developer workflows by strengthening CI/CD pipelines, reducing manual steps, and increasing test coverage.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams (product, ops, data) to understand real-world needs and ship tools that directly support program delivery in the field.
• Debug and resolve production issues across our stack, with a focus on root cause analysis and long-term fixes.
• Advocate for sustainable engineering practices, including testing, documentation, and monitoring
• Help shape our tech roadmap with an eye toward scale, maintainability, and recipient experience

What you’ll bring:

• Exceptional alignment with GiveDirectly Values and active demonstration of our core competencies: emotional intelligence, problem solving, project management, follow-through, and fostering inclusivity. We welcome and strongly encourage applications from candidates who have personal or professional experience in the low-income and/or historically marginalized communities that we serve.
• Language Requirement: English
• 4+ years of industry experience creating production-caliber software and systems
• Experience with backend architecture: databases, cloud services, APIs
• Experience building infrastructure to deploy software
• Experience with strongly-typed, object-oriented programming such as Java, C#, Go, etc. and scripting languages such as Python, Ruby, etc.
• High degree of ownership and autonomy - you proactively advocate for ways to improve systems and constantly leave our codebase in a better state than you found it
• Strong analytical skills and communication - able to break down complex problems, describe technical trade-offs, and collaborate with cross-functional partners (e.g. technical program managers, product managers)
• Bonus: Experience using Python and AWS in a production environment
• Bonus: experience with payments/financial software and/or experience with microservice/serverless architecture

Compensation

At GiveDirectly, we strive to pay our employees generously and equitably. We use an accredited third party salary aggregator to calculate what we believe to be competitive pay based on role, location, and cost of living. We also have a no negotiation policy to ensure we are paying staff equitably across roles. Read more about our compensation philosophy here.

Unless otherwise noted, the benefits stipend may be used to cover benefits or taken as additional taxable income.

United States

• Base Salary: $157,500
• Bonus at Target Performance: 15% (~$23,625, with potential for upside. For reference, with the organization’s current performance multiplier, this amount would be $27,641 in 2025)
• Estimated Total Compensation at Target: $181,125+
• Annual Benefits Stipend: $21,393

United Kingdom

• Base Salary: £108,150
• Bonus at Target Performance: 15% (~£16,223, with potential for upside. For reference, with the organization’s current performance multiplier, this amount would be £18,981 in 2025)
• Estimated Total Compensation at Target: £124,373+
• Annual Benefits Stipend: £2,760

Kenya

• Base Salary: $91,500
• Bonus at Target Performance: 15% (~$13,725, with potential for upside. For reference, with the organization’s current performance multiplier, this amount would be $16,063 in 2025)
• Estimated Total Compensation at Target: $105,225+
• Annual Benefits Stipend: $8,453

This role is fully remote, so if you are not based in the US, UK or Kenya, we will share an estimated salary benchmark for the country you are based in during the hiring process. 

Why work at GiveDirectly?

At GiveDirectly, we work to ensure that you have everything you need to excel in your role and on your team, including:

• A positive and supportive team with opportunities for advancement 
• A demonstrated commitment to helping all staff develop and grow
• A competitive salary, including bonus
• A robust health benefits plan (exact details will vary by country)
• Unlimited PTO (that we encourage staff to take!)
• Desk allowance and flexible work location

About this specific hiring process

• Take-home coding assignment
• Live Coding (60 mins)
• Systems Design (60 mins)
• Project Deep Dive + Behavioral (60 mins)

*It’s possible that there will be adjustments to this interview process. Any changes will be communicated to you during the process.