Software Engineer, Data Infrastructure & Acquisition - Johannesburg, South Africa - Speechify

The mission of Speechify is to make sure that reading is never a barrier to learning.

Over 50 million people use Speechify’s text-to-speech products to turn whatever they’re reading – PDFs, books, Google Docs, news articles, websites – into audio, so they can read faster, read more, and remember more. Speechify’s text-to-speech reading products include its iOS app, Android App, Mac App, Chrome Extension, and Web App. Google recently named Speechify the Chrome Extension of the Year and Apple named Speechify its 2025 Design Award winner for Inclusivity.

Today, nearly 200 people around the globe work on Speechify in a 100% distributed setting – Speechify has no office. These include frontend and backend engineers, AI research scientists, and others from Amazon, Microsoft, and Google, leading PhD programs like Stanford, high growth startups like Stripe, Vercel, Bolt, and many founders of their own companies.

Overview

We're looking to hire for our Data side of our AI team at Speechify. This role is responsible for all aspects of data collection to support our model training operations. We are able to build high-quality datasets at petabyte-scale and low cost through a tight integration of infrastructure, engineering, and research work. We are looking for a skilled Software Engineer to join us.

What You’ll Do

• Be scrappy to find new sources of audio data and bring it into our ingestion pipeline
• Operate and extend the cloud infrastructure for our ingestion pipeline, currently running on GCP and managed with Terraform.
• Collaborate closely with our Scientists to shift the cost/throughput/quality frontier, delivering richer data at bigger scale and lower cost to power our next-generation models.
• Collaborate with others on the AI Team and Speechify Leadership to craft the AI Team’s dataset roadmap to power Speechify’s next-generation consumer and enterprise products.

An Ideal Candidate Should Have

• BS/MS/PhD in Computer Science or a related field.
• 5+ years of industry experience in software development.
• Proficiency with bash/Python scripting in Linux environments
• Proficiency in Docker and Infrastructure-as-Code concepts and professional experience with at least one major Cloud Provider (we use GCP)
• Experience with web crawlers, large-scale data processing workflows is a plus
• Ability to handle multiple tasks and adapt to changing priorities.
• Strong communication skills, both written and verbal.

What we offer

• A fast-growing environment where you can help shape the company and product.
• An entrepreneurial-minded team that supports risk, intuition, and hustle.
• A hands-off management approach so you can focus and do your best work.
• An opportunity to make a big impact in a transformative industry.