VP of Engineering

Job description

VP OF ENGINEERING Rime is a foundation modeling company that builds voice AI for enterprises running customer experiences at scale. Our models are purpose-built for high-volume conversational deployments, engineered for the accuracy, performance, and deployment flexibility that production environments actually demand. We started from a different premise than the rest of the field: build voice AI for human connection, not slop. Before we trained a single model, we built our own corpus — full-duplex, studio-quality conversational speech of normal people, recorded and annotated by PhD linguists. It's why our models are unparalleled in naturalism, and it's why enterprises pick Rime when pilots need to make it to production. ABOUT THE ROLE The VP of Engineering is the connective tissue across Rime's multidisciplinary engineering org. You'll manage planning, execution, and communication across model inference, infra, product, web/integrations, internal tools, and compliance. You'll drive coordination and development of the engineering roadmap, and orchestrate the chaos that is an early-stage startup as we scale. WHAT YOU'LL OWN People & Org - Lead all non-ML technical hiring - Career development and performance reviews across the engineering org - Build an engineering culture that can scale Teams reporting to you - ML Inference Engineering - Platform + Product Engineering - Infra Engineering - Internal Tools - Forward Deployed Engineering (matrixed) Code Production & Standards - Research, review, and establish new standards for code production and software practices at Rime - Set protocols and culture around AI-assisted code production - Make technology and tooling choices that allow the Rime platform to scale 100x Project Management & Delivery - Bottom-line prioritization across all engineering projects, actively managing tradeoffs in resource allocation over time — applying the Rime Operating Principles - Project management of engineering work and the engineering components of product releases - Establish best practices for on-call and incident response SOPs Security & Compliance - Take point on outstanding and upcoming compliance requirements - Ensure best security practices are in place for core infrastructure - Keep Rime Eng compliant and secure end-to-end WHAT WE'RE LOOKING FOR - ~10 years of solid IC and tech lead experience - At least a few years as an EM or Director at a midsize or larger startup - At least one tour of duty at an early stage startup. - At least one tour of duty at a Medium to large engineering org. - Familiarity with ML workflows and inference - Can communicate complex technical concepts with clarity and precision for a variety of audiences across the company. - Exceptional operating and organizational skills - Ability to size solutions appropriately for our scale and goals NICE TO HAVE - Based in the Bay Area - Hands-on experience scaling infra and platform systems through growth curve - Track record building engineering culture from the ground up, not just maintaining one you inherited WHY JOIN RIME - Category-defining voice AI infrastructure, not incremental research deltas - Direct collaboration with founders - Real impact on company trajectory - Meaningful equity upside - High ownership, high standards, low bureaucracy WHAT WE OFFER - Competitive base + meaningful early-stage equity - Health + 401k benefits - Hybrid-work friendly AT RIME, WE... - Are outliers - Cut through the hype to focus on the craft - Move fast with agency and freedom - Maintain a growth mindset, finding joy in the struggle - Do the right things, knowing that it'll lead to making money If that sounds like you too, you'll be a great fit for Rime!