Staff Infrastructure Engineer
Content + Source + Freshness • 11 Dec 2025 • 95% confidence
Offer value
Strong offer due to attractive salary range, critical role in scaling infrastructure, and emphasis on innovation.
- Salary range: $150K – $265K.
- Key role in innovative voice technology.
- Importance of scalability in tech infrastructure.
Pros
- High salary range indicating strong monetary recognition.
- Focus on scalability in a growing tech environment.
- Opportunities for innovation and hands-on experience with cutting-edge technology.
Cons
- High expectations may lead to stress.
- Startup environment may lack clear processes.
- Limited remote working options.
Who it's for
Senior / Lead • On-site
Good fit
- Infrastructure engineers with experience in startups.
- DevOps professionals excited about scaling.
- Tech innovators aiming for career development.
Not recommended for
- New graduates or trainees.
- Job seekers looking for remote-only work.
- Individuals uninterested in a startup culture.
Motivation fit
Key skills
About the job
Location
San Francisco
Employment Type
Full time
Department
Engineering
Compensation
- Engineering$150K – $265K • Offers Equity
Vision
We're creating the shift to voice as humanity's default interface. Why voice? Because voice captures the nuance, the emotion, and the humanity of interactions in ways text alone can't: voice makes technology human again.
Mission
We're building the platform for the future of voice technology. Our market edge is extensible, reliable infrastructure designed for the full complexity of voice interactions. 18 months, 150k developers, adding 1000 every day. Give it a try here
The Role
The Founding Senior Engineer (Infra) will be responsible for scaling Vapi’s real-time conversational infrastructure to millions of concurrent calls, while ensuring every call gets picked up within 1s with 99.9% reliability. You’ll also be a foundational part of how we build the culture at Vapi.
Outcomes
-
Own scalability projects end-to-end
Ship a pre-scoped project within the first 7 days (eg. redis HA)
Ship a project independently within the first 30 days (eg. new CRD for managing worker pools)
-
Build monitoring
Ship pre-defined monitoring goals within the first 14 days (eg. prometheus rules)
Ship monitoring independently within the first 30 days (eg. refactor call monitoring to real-time alert on latency spikes)
-
Build anti-frangibility into the infrastructure
Unprompted, build things that make our infrastructure more antifragile (eg. auto multi-cluster rollover).
Competencies
Experience with Kubernetes, Pulumi, or scaling other distributed systems
Communication: You can clearly articulate what you’re thinking and feeling
Cracked-ness: You’re more cracked than the most cracked person on the team
Startup Ready: You have a reason to be here and can make sacrifices for something uncertain
Founder Juice: New ideas come from you, you build it yourself or annoy everyone until it’s done ;)
Qualifications
Previous Founding/Infrastructure/DevOps Engineer
1+ year of experience with a seed or Series A company
3+ years of experience in Infrastructure
8+ years experience in Engineering
Skills
JavaScript, Kubernetes, Node.js, Rust, TypeScript, Distributed Systems
Compensation Range: $150K - $265K
