Staff Engineer

Join Modulate as we pioneer the future of prosocial voice intelligence.

At Modulate, we’re building voice technology that makes online spaces safer and more inclusive. Our real-time voice moderation platform, ToxMod, and our voice identity tools enable game studios, community platforms, and enterprises to better detect harm, prevent fraud, and enhance user trust—all while scaling securely and responsibly.

We’re looking for a Staff Engineer to help us architect, scale, and evolve our core product platform as we grow into new markets and customer segments. If you're energized by solving complex, high-impact problems that lack a clear roadmap, and you love helping others level up while doing so, this could be the right role for you.

Your Impact

As a Staff Engineer at Modulate, you'll be a technical leader and systems thinker, working across the stack—but with a particular emphasis on frontend architecture, data persistence, and the interfaces that connect everything together. You'll operate as a key partner to the Director of Engineering, diving deep into critical technical challenges that matter most to our mission.

Your work will directly impact:

- The scalability and resilience of our real-time moderation tools

- The intuitiveness and reliability of the experiences we deliver to users

- The growth of our engineering team’s technical maturity and long-term impact

- Our ability to safely scale into sensitive and high-compliance industries

This role is perfect for someone who resonates with the Solver archetype (à la Will Larson): a trusted agent of the organization who thrives in complexity and brings order to ambiguity.

As the team evolves, there’s also room to transition into a Tech Lead role focused on a strategic domain.

What You’ll Do

- Provide technical direction across the engineering org: guiding architectural choices, mentoring teammates, and ensuring we’re building scalable, maintainable systems.

- Dive deep into thorny problems in partnership with Director of Engineering. Guide development of complex projects across our products with an emphasis on frontend interfaces and high-performance data storage and retrieval patterns.

- Design and evolve our web application architecture to support real-time workflows and robust moderation and investigation tools.

- Collaborate with product managers, backend/ML engineers, and design partners to ensure user-facing tools are intuitive, reliable, and performant.

- Shape long-term technical strategy around data models, storage, observability, and operational reliability.

- Contribute to roadmap planning, technical scoping, and standards definition across teams.

What We’re Looking For

- Clear, thoughtful communicator and collaborator. Comfortable operating across product, design, and platform teams.

- Effective in making tradeoffs between speed and quality in order to balance short- and long-term org needs.

- Org-first engineer with demonstrated record of raising the team along with themselves. 

- Deep proficiency in modern frontend development and frontend system architecture.

- Strong practical experience with database design, performance tuning, and data modeling, including relational and non-relational databases.

- Demonstrated ability to navigate and set direction in ambiguous or rapidly evolving environments.

- 8+ years of software engineering experience across multiple layers of the web stack, with a strong record of technical ownership and impact.

- Bonus: familiarity with cloud infrastructure (AWS preferred), infrastructure-as-code, and DevOps practices.

Benefits

At Modulate, we prioritize people and sustainability—because doing great work requires feeling supported and safe. Some of our key benefits include:

- Competitive salary + equity

- Full health, dental, and vision coverage

- Flexible PTO, with a strong culture of taking it

- Weekly team lunches with dietary accommodations

- Hybrid work: core in-office days with flexible remote options

- Regular leadership and industry learning sessions

- Support for career development and continued learning

- A deeply inclusive, human-centered culture

Pay Transparency

Modulate believes in transparency as a cornerstone of equity and trust. Compensation for this role is based on seniority, skills, and experience.

Salary: $185,000

Equity: Offered

Other perks: Full benefits, flexible PTO, professional growth resources

About Modulate

Modulate is on a mission to make voice a force for good online. Our tools help communities thrive by proactively detecting toxic behavior, protecting user identity, and empowering safety teams. We’re trusted by leaders in gaming and beyond—and we’re growing fast.

We believe that great cultures don’t just happen. That’s why we’ve built a foundation of intentional systems: from bias-reducing hiring practices to transparent pay to tools that help teams collaborate across communication styles. At Modulate, we treat people like people—and we’re building technology that does the same.

Ready to join us?

Apply here or reach out directly—we’re excited to meet you.

A quick note as you apply:

For the questions “Your fit for the role,” “Your values/goals,” and “Why Modulate?” on our application form, we kindly ask that you focus your responses on experiences and motivations that directly relate to the role. Please avoid including details that would reveal protected demographic information (such as race, age, gender, ethnicity, or sexual orientation), as we strive to assess all candidates equitably and without bias.

We also want to hear your authentic voice. While it can be helpful to use tools to support your thinking, we ask that your responses reflect your own perspective. Applications with significant overlap or duplication from other submissions will not be considered.