Senior Software Engineer

Job description

About Us At Hiya, we're making calls safe, useful, and human again. Voice is the most human form of communication, yet it's become one of the least trusted. Spam, scams, and AI manipulation have eroded what was once a simple way to connect. Hiya is changing that. Each month our AI voice technology analyzes 28+ billion calls, protecting over 550 million users and 800+ businesses worldwide. Partnering with a growing global network including, AT&T, Samsung, British Telecom EE, Rogers, MasOrange,Bell Canada, MasMovil, and Virgin Media O2, we're not just stopping bad actors, we're helping people feel good and confident about picking up the phone again. This is a pivotal moment for voice. As new threats and technologies accelerate, so does demand for trusted voice communication. Hiya is growing 40%+ year over year, expanding globally, and defining what voice becomes next. Join us! You won't just work on what voice is today, you'll shape what it becomes tomorrow: smarter, safer, and genuinely worth answering again. About the Role Hiya is hiring a Senior Software Engineer to join the Protect team, responsible for building and scaling the AI-powered spam and scam detection systems that protect hundreds of millions of people from fraudulent calls before they ring. As voice threats evolve faster than ever; driven by AI-generated abuse, sophisticated spoofing, and increasingly complex attack patterns. You'll own the end-to-end pipeline that enables our data science team to develop increasingly sophisticated scam detection models while maintaining strict privacy and regulatory compliance. It's all about building the pipelines that allow Hiya to stay ahead of rapidly evolving voice threats and deliver measurably better protection to mobile operators and their subscribers worldwide. You'll shape how protection scales across our network, how quickly we adapt to new threats, and how effectively we translate AI innovation into real-world safety outcomes. What You'll Do - Own the complete development lifecycle for spam and scam detection infrastructure - from researching and proposing solutions to implementation, testing, deployment, production maintenance, and monitoring - Participate in on-call rotation, ensuring rapid recognition and resolution of production issues while continuously improving system reliability - Design and build frameworks that enable data scientists to develop, test, and deploy increasingly complex scam detection models with access to call data in a privacy-aware, regulation-compliant manner - Make independent implementation decisions while driving collaborative design discussions that improve system quality, long-term maintainability, and cost-effectiveness across the team - Evaluate critical tradeoffs between immediate fixes and durable solutions when production issues arise, prioritizing overall service quality and system resilience - Collaborate proactively with cross-functional partners - including product managers, data scientists, and other engineering teams - to align technical decisions with business impact, user needs, and Hiya's broader strategic priorities - Recognize and evangelize engineering patterns, design principles and architectural decisions that could be adopted across teams to raise overall quality and execution speed - Influence how the team operates by pushing back on solutions that don't align with design principles, surfacing issues early during project planning, and reasoning clearly about business impact versus cost What We’re Looking For Required - 4+ years of software engineering experience, with strong expertise in distributed systems, microservices, network architecture, and database systems - Proven experience operating distributed systems in production environments - Ability to quickly recognize, diagnose and resolve production issues - Relevant technical experience may include: - RxM engineering - TCP/IP - DNS resolution - Web backend development - Ability to evaluate tradeoffs between immediate fixes and long-term solutions - Strong focus on service quality, reliability and system resilience - Ability to work independently on implementation while knowing when to involve others in design discussions - Confidence making well-informed technical decisions and clearly explaining tradeoffs - Interest in agentic workflows, including engineering automation and customer-facing applications Preferred - 6+ years of software engineering experience - Experience building frameworks or infrastructure that support data science or machine learning workflows - Functional programming experience - Experience with data processing pipelines, especially Kafka or similar technologies - Familiarity with client-side processing pipelines - DevOps, monitoring, and observability experience - Familiarity with on-call rotation The person in this role must embody Hiya’s key values of Serving our customers, Doing rather than observing, Improving ourselves and our business, Owning and holding ourselves accountable for success, and Leading by showing up with a point of view, engaging in open discussion, listening respectfully to others opinions and committing to decisions. The requirements listed in the job descriptions are guidelines. You don’t have to satisfy every requirement or meet every qualification listed. If your skills are transferable we would still love to hear from you. More Details When determining compensation, a number of factors will be considered: skills, experience, job scope, location and competitive compensation market data. Our Interview Process At Hiya, our interview process is designed to evaluate candidates through real, experience-based work. We focus on understanding how you think, exercise judgment, use leverage (including AI), and collaborate, rather than how well you perform in traditional interviews. Process Overview Our standard interview process follows this sequence: - Initial Screen: We confirm baseline alignment, role interest, relevant experience, and logistics. - Hiring Manager (HM) Screen: We evaluate role fit, expectations, and execution readiness. - Take Home Working Assignment: You'll complete a take-home, role-relevant assignment designed to reflect the kind of work you would do at Hiya. The assignment focuses on how you think, prioritize, and explain your approach. You'll review your work and discuss your reasoning with the interview panel - Onsite Interview Loop: You’ll participate in a live, role-relevant working session as part of an interview loop with multiple interviewers. This experience is designed to reflect how work is done at Hiya and focuses on your real-time problem-solving and collaboration skills. During the session, you’ll work through your take-home assignment live and walk interviewers through your thinking as you go. Interviewers will explore how you structure problems, communicate your reasoning, respond to questions and feedback, and adapt your approach in the moment. Part of this loop also includes our Hiya Future Values Interview; an independent conversation focused on your long-term potential, judgment under ambiguity, and ability to create sustained value as scope and complexity increase. • Reference Check: As a final step, we connect with 2–3 past supervisors to gain additional perspective on your experience and working style, and to further understand how you align with Hiya’s values. Benefits - Stock options - Private Retirement/Pension program through Erste Bank - Generali Private Health Care - Donation Matching for a charity of your choice (up to $500/ year) - WFH equipment stipend (up to $500 in your first year) - $1,000/year in Professional Development funds - Online English Classes - Gym membership - Flexible working model (2 days a week, Tuesdays and Thursday is required in the office. In the rest of the month you decide whether you are working from home or from the office.) This position is based in Budapest, Hungary. We are building a team with a variety of perspectives, identities, and professional experiences. We evaluate great candidates through a business lens and we strongly believe that diversity and unique perspectives make our company stronger, more dynamic, and a great place to build a career. Our team has won various awards over the last 4 years from Built-in Seattle and Seattle Business Week to #86 on Deloitte Technology Fast 500 and Forbes #1 Startup Employer. Here at Hiya, we are a people-centric company focused on helping each and every one of our employees grow both personally and professionally. We feel that creating a team culture of support and empowerment to challenge the status quo results in an energized and passionate team that is continuously challenged and passionate about the work they are doing. You'll love working here if you are looking for an innovative challenge that is disrupting an industry. Come join us!