AI Voice Platform Software Engineer
Summary
ZukiTalk is an early-stage AI voice/text outreach product for automotive dealerships that calls customers after vehicle inspections to collect service approvals. The engineer owns architecture and development of the PHP/Symfony + PostgreSQL platform on AWS, building Twilio-based Voice AI workflows, dealership API integrations, and improving production reliability.
Compensation: $110k – $120k • No equity
ZukiTalk is an AI voice and text outreach product for automotive dealerships. When a vehicle inspection (MPI) is completed at a dealership, ZukiTalk calls or texts the customer to walk them through the results and collect service approvals without requiring a service advisor to make the call manually. It also sends appointment reminders before a vehicle is scheduled to come in.
The product is a PHP/Symfony web application backed by PostgreSQL. It connects to a small number of external services.
At ZukiTalk, we're changing how dealerships communicate with customers using conversational Voice AI. We've built a production Voice AI platform that explains vehicle recommendations, answers customer questions, and helps service advisors save time while improving the customer experience. We're no longer building a prototype. We're in live dealership pilots with enterprise integrations and are looking for an exceptional engineering leader to help us scale.
This is an opportunity to join early, influence the architecture, and help shape the future of the company.
About the Role This is a hands-on leadership position. You won't spend your days managing meetings. You'll spend your time improving production systems, building new capabilities, solving challenging technical problems, and helping us deliver an exceptional customer experience. You'll work directly with the founder to translate real customer needs into scalable software.
What You'll Do Own the architecture and ongoing development of our Voice AI platform. The product is a PHP/Symfony web application backed by PostgreSQL Build new Voice AI workflows and outbound communication capabilities. Design and maintain API integrations with dealership software platforms. Improve platform reliability, monitoring, logging, and observability. Help optimize AI prompts, conversation flow, latency, and customer experience. Troubleshoot production issues and continuously improve system stability. Review code and establish engineering best practices. Create technical documentation and reduce dependency on tribal knowledge. Help evaluate future technology decisions as the company grows.
Technologies We Use Should have experience with many of the following: PHP Symfony Postgre SQL AWS, including S3 and SQS Docker Twilio GitHub Sentry AWS Lightsail Clever Cloud REST APIs, webhooks and third-party integrations Queue-based / asynchronous processing Production monitoring, debugging and observability OpenAI APIs Voice AI / Conversational AI Speech-to-text Large Language Models
What We're Looking For: We're less interested in titles and more interested in ownership. The ideal candidate has experience: Building production SaaS applications. Maintaining software someone else originally built. Working directly with founders. Making thoughtful architectural decisions without overengineering. Balancing speed with stability. Solving problems independently. Communicating technical concepts clearly to non-technical teammates.
You'll Thrive Here If You... Love building products customers actually use. Prefer solving problems over debating them. Can simplify complex systems. Stay calm when production issues arise. Care deeply about customer experience. Enjoy wearing multiple hats. Like being trusted with ownership.
Nice-to-Have Experience Automotive technology SaaS startup experience Workflow automation
Why Join Us? You'll join at an exciting stage where your work has immediate impact. You'll help shape product direction, influence architecture, work directly with customers, and play a major role in building a company from early pilots into a rapidly growing AI platform. If you're excited about helping build something meaningful from the ground up and seeing your work make a difference every daym we'd love to meet you.
Location Remote within the United States. Periodic travel for planning sessions and customer visits may be requested.
Compensation Competitive salary based on experience. Equity opportunity not right away but for the right long-term fit. Bonus PTO
One More Thing... You will interview with one other close co-worker. We require zoom interviews not using AI in anyway. Must pass complete background check, we require references, will check previous employment and dates.