--- title: 'Senior Software Engineer (CVI) at Tavus' canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/senior-software-engineer-cvi-tavus-san-francisco-0xy8c3dnhxe0' type: 'job' last_seen: '2026-09-10' --- # Senior Software Engineer (CVI) at Tavus - **Company:** Tavus - **Location:** San Francisco, CA - **Employment:** full-time - **Work type:** onsite - **Posted:** 2026-07-09 - **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-10 - **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/tavus/ff6e71cf-9ac2-4239-a547-69eedd66b56f ## Job description ## About Us [Tavus](https://www.tavus.io/) is a research lab pioneering human computing. We’re building AI Humans: a new interface that closes the gap between people and machines, free from the friction of today’s systems. Our real-time human simulation models let machines see, hear, respond, and even look real—enabling meaningful, face-to-face conversations. AI Humans combine the emotional intelligence of humans with the reach and reliability of machines, making them capable, trusted agents available 24/7, in every language, on our terms. Imagine a therapist anyone can afford. A personal trainer that adapts to your schedule. A fleet of medical assistants that can give every patient the attention they need. With Tavus, individuals, enterprises, and developers can all build AI Humans to connect, understand, and act with empathy at scale. We’re a Series B company backed by world-class investors including Sequoia Capital, Y Combinator, and Scale Venture Partners. Be part of shaping a future where humans and machines truly understand each other. ## The Role We're hiring a Senior Software Engineer to be a technical driver on Tavus's Conversational Video Interface, our multimodal real-time conversational product. It's a hands-on role. Your code runs in the middle of live conversations between people and PALs. What you'll own: - Ship features end-to-end. You'll take product priorities that start out loosely defined, like voice localization for accent support or multilingual sentence endpointing, and turn them into a spec, an architecture, and shipped features. - Partner with Research to bring state-of-the-art real-time models into CVI. Sometimes that means dipping into research territory yourself. - Fix what you find. If you spot a flaky process or a slow path, you don't need a ticket or anyone's permission to go after it. What this role has shipped: - Guided Browser Control: a framework that lets PALs drive a real web browser mid-conversation, narrating each click and scroll out loud - Magic Canvas: interactive cards rendered right on the video stream. The PAL puts the right card up at the right moment: a question, a text box, a calendar, a chart, an alert - Memories and Knowledge Base: the context layer that lets PALs recall past conversations and pull from document stores in real time, without breaking stride - Utterance-to-utterance optimization: shaving hundreds of milliseconds off conversational turns Who you are: - You're proactive. When you see an issue, you fix it. Nobody has to ask. - You're autonomous. Given a loosely defined project, you figure out what "done" means, make the judgment calls, and deliver. - You're energized by unfamiliar problems. A lot of the work here has no playbook, and you'll take on projects outside your direct experience. - You adapt as priorities evolve. This space moves fast, and the most important thing to build can change as we learn. When it does, you adjust and keep moving. - You hold a high bar. What matters to you is how the product feels to the person on the other end of the conversation. Clean code and clever architecture are means to that end. - You're passionate about the future of interfaces. How people and computers interact is being reinvented right now, and you want a hand in shaping it. Requirements: - Fluent in Python, with real depth in concurrent programs. Low-level concepts (asyncio, multiprocessing, event loops, the GIL, shared memory) are dear friends, and you design with them in mind. - You've built real-time systems, whether video, audio, or model inference, and you know what a millisecond latency budget feels like. - You bring a senior track record: you set direction, own decisions, and get things over the finish line. - You explain complex things clearly, and you use that to teach the people around you. Nice to haves: None of these are required, but they'd help. - Experience with GPUs and GPU management - Deep experience with video streaming over WebRTC - Deep experience with LLMs and agentic frameworks - Extensive experience with low-level systems If you don't check every box but this sounds like the work you want to be doing, apply anyway. ## About Tavus ## Company Overview - **One-liner**: Tavus is an AI research lab and platform pioneering "Human Computing," building models and APIs that enable AI to see, hear, understand, and respond with lifelike realism in real-time. - **Entity Type**: Private (Venture-backed) - **Headquarters**: San Francisco, CA, United States - **Founded**: 2021 - **Founders**: Hassaan Raza & Quinn Favret ## Core Business - **Primary industry**: Artificial Intelligence / Human Computing / Multi-modal AI - **Target customers**: B2B; Product teams and developers (via API and no-code builder), enterprise teams (for onboarding, training, support), and prosumers/individuals (for tutors, companions, assistants). - **Mission**: "To make human-AI interaction as natural as face-to-face interaction, enabling the human touch where it has been previously unscalable." [ycombinator.com](https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/tavus) ## Products & Services - **Conversational Video Interface (CVI)**: An API-first platform that allows developers to embed real-time, face-to-face conversational AI into any product. It enables emotionally intelligent, adaptive interactions with sub-second latency. - **Tavus Platform (No-Code SaaS)**: A no-code builder that lets individuals and enterprises create custom AI humans for use in onboarding, training, customer engagement, or personal use by customizing personality, knowledge, and appearance. - **Replica API**: Tools for creating personal or stock digital twins (replicas) with studio-grade fidelity, full-face rendering, and identity preservation. Supports both individual and large-scale deployment. - **Personas**: A system for defining custom personalities and context to tailor the behavior of AI humans. - **Core AI Models**: - **Sparrow (Conversational Flow Model)**: Delivers low-latency, accurate turn-taking by analyzing lexical, semantic, prosodic, and acoustic cues. - **Raven (Perception Model)**: A multi-modal perception engine that translates facial expressions, tone, gaze, and emotion into conversational signals. - **Phoenix (Rendering Model)**: A gaussian-diffusion based model for high-fidelity, photorealistic facial rendering with contextually accurate emotions and expressions in real time. [tavus.io](https://www.tavus.io/) ## Market Standing - **Valuation/Market Cap**: Not publicly disclosed. - **Key Metric**: **Total Funding**: $40M+ (including a $18M raise in 2024 and a subsequent Series B for $40M in 2025). [ycombinator.com](https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/tavus), [techcrunch.com](https://techcrunch.com) - **Notable Investors/Partners**: Scale Venture Partners, Sequoia Capital, Y Combinator (Summer 2021 batch), HubSpot. [tavus.io](https://www.tavus.io/lp/ai-info-page) - **Growth Signals**: - Demonstrated product-market fit with case studies for clients like Final Round AI (1.2M practice minutes logged), ACTO (life sciences training), and CareFlick (senior companionship). - Raising significant venture capital over multiple rounds, indicating strong investor confidence and a long runway for R&D. ## Competitive Advantages - **Real-time realism**: Overcomes the "uncanny valley" with sub-second latency and photorealistic rendering, a key differentiator from asynchronous video-generation and static avatar companies. - **Comprehensive AI Human Stack**: Offers a full operating system (perception, memory, knowledge, action) rather than just a single component like an avatar. - **Flexibility**: Provides multiple integration paths—a modular API, a bring-your-own-LLM option, and a no-code builder—making it accessible to both technical and non-technical users. - **Ethical foundation**: Built with a stated commitment to privacy, consent, and empathy, and aims for transparency in disclosure (e.g., SOC 2 and HIPAA compliance). ## Strategic Focus - **Category Creation**: Actively establishing "Human Computing" as a new industry standard for human-AI interaction, moving beyond simple chatbots and scripted avatars. - **Developer Ecosystem**: Centered on an API-first strategy to become the platform of choice for developers building the next generation of AI assistants, companions, and employees. - **Real-time & Multi-modal**: Continuing to push the boundaries of multi-modal AI (video, audio, text, emotion) to create more intuitive and authentic interactions. - **Enterprise & Prosumer Scale**: Growing the no-code platform to serve both enterprise-scale training/support and personal use cases (tutoring, wellness, companionship). ## Why Work Here - **Cutting-edge Research & Impact**: A chance to work on frontier multi-modal AI models (perception, rendering, conversation) that directly shape how humans interact with machines. - **Culture**: Described as a tight-knit, high-output team with semi-annual full-team retreats and a focus on continuous learning alongside AI leaders. [tavus.io](https://www.tavus.io/careers) - **Compensation & Benefits**: Offers competitive salary, meaningful equity, fully covered medical, dental, and vision for employees and their families, unlimited PTO, and a gear stipend for setting up the workspace. [tavus.io](https://www.tavus.io/careers) - **Work Environment**: "Our team moves mountains to bring the vision to life, and we’ve got their backs." The company appears to embrace a hybrid/office culture in San Francisco (SOMA) with remote options for some roles (e.g., Senior Software Engineer). [ycombinator.com](https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/tavus) - **Team Growth**: Team size reported as around 40 members. Currently hiring for roles like AI Researcher (Perception), Customer Engineer, Forward Deployed Engineer, and Solution Engineer. [ycombinator.com](https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/tavus), [jobs.ashbyhq.com](https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/tavus) ## Sources 1. [tavus.io](https://www.tavus.io/) 2. [tavus.io/careers](https://www.tavus.io/careers) 3. [tavus.io/lp/ai-info-page](https://www.tavus.io/lp/ai-info-page) 4. [ycombinator.com](https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/tavus) 5. [jobs.ashbyhq.com](https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/tavus) 6. [techcrunch.com](https://techcrunch.com) ## Other roles at Tavus - [Vibe Growth Marketer](https://feeny.ai/job/vibe-growth-marketer-tavus-san-francisco-ynha49h58qg6) — San Francisco, CA - [Business Development Representative](https://feeny.ai/job/business-development-representative-tavus-san-francisco-vaebfha9r4ex) — San Francisco, CA - [Product Designer](https://feeny.ai/job/product-designer-tavus-san-francisco-813z9bn38tfr) — San Francisco, CA - [Brand & Product Designer](https://feeny.ai/job/brand-product-designer-tavus-san-francisco-8ph3kwhaykea) — San Francisco, CA - [Product Manager](https://feeny.ai/job/product-manager-tavus-san-francisco-w8gfpeca4wqe) — San Francisco, CA - [Enterprise Account Executive](https://feeny.ai/job/enterprise-account-executive-tavus-san-francisco-eh3s3n051tk8) — San Francisco, CA - [AI Researcher (Multimodal Audio/Video Generation)](https://feeny.ai/job/ai-researcher-multimodal-audio-video-generation-tavus-san-francisco-rebzx76z9c96) — San Francisco, CA - [Marketer (Brand, Product, Storytelling)](https://feeny.ai/job/marketer-brand-product-storytelling-tavus-san-francisco-3avcsehy2hny) — San Francisco, CA - [Conversational Modelling Research Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/conversational-modelling-research-engineer-tavus-remote-rhfhte0fhg6v) - [Software Engineer, Infrastructure](https://feeny.ai/job/software-engineer-infrastructure-tavus-2294fqzd0wmy)