Senior WebRTC QA & Automation Engineer

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:

You’ll be a founding member of Gather’s QA team, driving a new approach to quality within the Gather product through manual and automated video and application performance testing. We need someone who can carry the “Extreme Quality” banner while helping our development team move quickly. We deploy multiple times a day, and that should get faster.

WebRTC lies at the heart of the Gather experience, providing a low-latency, seamless experience for the spontaneous interactions we're known for. You will explore every nook and cranny of our video system, ensuring it behaves as expected across OS platforms and under a multitude of network conditions and hardware configurations.

Gather does more than your average video conferencing platform — we provide an entire virtual office. That means our application’s performance requires a watchful eye and a steady hand. You will ensure that performance never regresses unnoticed through persistent testing and by building automated test suites that recreate real-world situations.

Where you will make an impact:

• Build automated test bots with Selenium and Playwright to push our video system to its limits—scaling up participant counts to test the boundaries of what our video calls can handle under real-world conditions.
• You’ll shape the tools and approach to testing within Gather, establishing patterns for years to come.
• Write and oversee the operation of test scripts that ensure our video system gracefully handles adverse network conditions and resource-constrained computers.
• Collaborate closely with the video team to harden our video infrastructure, ensuring that SFUs, TURN servers, and clients all play nicely under pressure.
• Hunt down edge-case bugs by executing manual test plans across new and existing features, catching them before they sneak into production.
• Deliver insights from your tests that shape the future of our product—helping us create the most resilient video platform possible.

What you bring:

• A deep understanding of video technologies, with bonus points, if you’ve wrestled with WebRTC’s quirks—buffer bloat and packet loss are your adversaries, and you have the skills to find and identify them.
• An ability to confidently self-direct — you must craft test plans and automated tests and choose which are most valuable to prioritize in the future.
• Expertise in Selenium and Playwright, with a proven track record of crafting robust test scripts for complex applications.
• Practical knowledge of Windows and Mac, their audio/video subsystems, and the ability to figure out why they break.
• Familiarity with TypeScript, Javascript, and writing automation for React-based applications.
• A willingness and desire to get your hands dirty in manual testing, doing whatever it takes to ensure we ship excellent software. You’ll be establishing new testing procedures from scratch.
• A passion for chasing the best possible video quality, diving into WebRTC internals, and using metrics like VMAF to ensure an image is sharp enough to cut somebody.
• Exceptional communication skills—you’ll keep engineers, product managers, and our support team in the loop with concise, actionable insights, ensuring no bugs sneak past your watch.

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 $130,000 - $185,000 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 that's 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.