Software Engineer in Test (Senior-Staff Level)
$130k - $200k USD
About Cantina:
Cantina Labs is a social AI company, developing a suite of advanced real-time models that push the boundaries of expression, personality, and realism. We bring characters to life, transforming how people tell stories, connect, and create. We build and power ecosystems. Cantina, our flagship social AI platform, is just the beginning.
If you're excited about the potential AI has to shape human creativity and social interactions, join us in building the future!
About the Role:
The Media Engineering team builds and operates one of the most advanced real-time audio and video platforms powering AI characters at scale.
These systems are distributed, asynchronous, and inherently non-deterministic. Ensuring reliability requires more than writing automated tests — it requires deep software engineering fundamentals, strong debugging skills, and the ability to reason about complex, multi-layered systems.
We are looking for a software engineer first who will own and evolve our automated test infrastructure and reliability strategy. You will investigate intermittent failures, dive into product code to identify root causes, and design frameworks that make complex systems observable and testable.
This is a highly technical role focused on systems-level problem solving, not traditional QA automation.
What You'll Do:
Architect and evolve automated test frameworks from the ground up
Investigate and root-cause intermittent and non-deterministic failures across distributed systemsDebug deeply into application and platform code to identify race conditions, async issues, and performance bottlenecks
Design tooling and infrastructure that improves determinism, observability, and system reliability
Evaluate audio and video performance under varying network conditions and device environments
Collaborate closely with product and platform engineers to improve testability and code quality
Mentor engineers and raise the technical bar for automation and reliability practices across the team
What You'll Bring:
4+ years of experience as a software engineer building complex systems
Deep proficiency in JavaScript/TypeScript, with deep understanding of asynchronous programming
Solid object-oriented design instincts and architectural judgment
Proven ability to debug distributed, real-time, or high-concurrency systems
Experience developing asynchronous and multithreaded applications
Ability to read, analyze, and improve production-level application code
Track record of designing or extending test frameworks (not just writing tests within them)
Systems thinker with sharp root-cause analysis skills
Excellent written and verbal communication skills
Collaborative mindset with a natural inclination toward mentorship
Familiarity with real-time media systems (WebRTC, streaming pipelines, network variability)
Comfort working with CI/CD pipelines and automation tooling
Background testing SDKs, APIs, or distributed client–server architectures
Location:
We have offices located in Sunnyvale, CA, San Francisco, CA and Brooklyn, NY. Our Media Engineering team strongly desires candidates available to work in the Bay Area, in a hybrid setting. For reference, 95% of the Media Engineering team works from the Bay Area.
Compensation:
The anticipated annual base salary range for this role is between $130,000-$200,000. When determining compensation, a number of factors will be considered, including skills, experience, job scope, location, and competitive compensation market data.
Benefits:
Competitive salary and generous company equity
Medical, dental, and vision insurance – 99.99% of premiums covered by Cantina
42 days of paid time off, including:
15 PTO days
10 sick days
15 company holidays
2 floating holidays
Generous parental leave & fertility support
401(k) retirement savings plan
Lifestyle spending account – $500/month to use however you’d like
Complimentary lunch and snacks for in-office employees
One Medical membership, and more!