Staff Backend Engineer - Video

About us

In the last few years, remote and hybrid work has had an explosion in popularity, giving workers an unprecedented level of access to opportunity and an increase in quality of life. However, our existing tools were not set up to do remote work well. Work can be isolating, transactional, and void of the camaraderie that makes everyone feel like they’re in it together.

To solve this, Gather builds virtual offices that bring the best of in-person work to remote. We’ve already seen success with our approach, with over 10,000 remote-first companies using our spaces every day. 

And yet it’s still the early days for our broader vision of the Metaverse. We’re excited about how the Metaverse can break down physical constraints that exist today, not just in where you can work, but which friends/family you can see, or what educational opportunities you can have access to. 

Join us in this mission!

Role overview:

As a Staff Software Engineer within the Video team, you would take responsibility (along with a small team) for the design and implementation of this integral part of our video platform. 

Video lies at the heart of the Gather experience, providing a low-latency, seamless experience for the spontaneous interactions we're known for. Our video infrastructure handles thousands of concurrent users, spanning all continents of the world.

Unlike traditional room-based video infrastructure, our video infra allows any two users to have an audio/video connection in an instant — enabling experiences where a speaker can address a large audience while the audience remains quiet to the speaker, yet the audience can still mingle amongst their neighbors, just like in real life. Our self-operated video infrastructure spans 10 data centers and features a custom SFU architecture.

Where you will make an impact:

• Deliver the tastiest, most appealing video frames our users’ internet connections can endure
• Optimize our video servers until they laugh with glee at the notion of having hundreds of simultaneous meeting participants
• Re-architecting our video system to implement SFU-cascading. We need to design and implement backhaul of video between SFU instances, picking the most efficient network path.
• Degrade quality with grace for bandwidth or CPU-constrained devices, and handle spurious spikes in latency/congestion with a shout of “Not today, internet weather!”
• Build tools that guide us to our goal of an exceptionally reliable meeting platform
• Instrument our service until it looks like a time-traveling Delorean you saw in those movies
• Build automated tests that ensure the reliability and performance of our video infrastructure as we make it more awesome

What you bring:

• Experience working on a large-scale group video calling platform (e.g. Zoom or Google Meet)
• Experience working with WebRTC, either directly or with libraries that use it
• Intrinsic motivation and drive to solve difficult problems without guidance
• A keen intuition for well-designed software
• Ability to thoughtfully stack your priorities in an ever-changing startup environment
• Excellent interpersonal and communication skills

US Salary Range

At Gather, compensation may vary outside of this range depending on a number of factors, including a candidate’s qualifications, skills, competencies and experience, and location. The base salary range for this position in the selected city is $187,850 - $237,575 annually and we encourage candidates outside of this salary range to apply.

Base pay is one part of the total package provided to compensate and recognize employees for their work, and this role will be eligible for a stock reward reflective of an early-stage startup.

Gather is committed to building an inclusive and equitable workplace for individuals of all backgrounds. We strive to build a workplace where employees feel comfortable bringing their authentic selves to work, everyday. Qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, ethnicity, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender perception or identity, national origin, age, marital status, pregnancy or parental status, protected veteran status, disability status, or any other basis prohibited by law. Additionally, we're committed to providing access, equal opportunity and reasonable accommodation for individuals with disabilities in employment. If reasonable accommodation is needed to participate in the job application or interview process, to perform essential job functions, and/or to receive other benefits and privileges of employment, please notify the recruiter you are working with. We also ask that all applicants consider answering the voluntary demographic questions on our job application to help us track the inclusivity of our recruiting efforts and programs. Answering these questions is entirely voluntary and your answers will not be shared with the hiring team and will not impact the hiring decision.