Tech Lead, Product Engineering

About Cartesia

Our mission is to architect AI that learns from and interacts with the world like humans do.

We're pioneering the model architectures that will make this possible. Our founding team met as PhDs at the Stanford AI Lab, where we invented State Space Models or SSMs, a new primitive for training efficient, large-scale foundation models. Our team combines deep expertise in model innovation and systems engineering paired with a design-minded product engineering team to build and ship cutting edge models and experiences.

We're funded by leading investors at Index Ventures and Lightspeed Venture Partners, along with Factory, Conviction, A Star, General Catalyst, SV Angel, Databricks and others. We're fortunate to have the support of many amazing advisors, and 90+ angels across many industries, including the world's foremost experts in AI.

About the Role

We're hiring a Tech Lead, Product Engineering to help build Cartesia's Product Engineering team as a hands-on technical and people leader. You'll work alongside the engineers building the product surfaces around our models — including Voices, Voice Agents, self-serve growth, billing, and shared product infrastructure — while helping the team grow in size, quality, and impact.

This is a player-coach role. You'll stay close to the work, contribute directly when it matters, and earn technical credibility with the team, while also hiring, mentoring, and creating the operating rhythm needed to ship exceptional products consistently. You'll initially embed with the Voices squad and help establish clear ownership across product surfaces that span teams.

Your Impact

• Build alongside the team and contribute directly to important product and technical work, especially while the team is growing.

• Lead and develop product engineers through coaching, feedback, career development, and a high bar for performance and craft.

• Help grow the Product Engineering team by personally sourcing, interviewing, and closing exceptional engineers.

• Partner closely with Product and Design to shape what we build, make strong product and technical tradeoffs, and turn ambiguous goals into shipped experiences.

• Establish a predictable execution cadence without adding unnecessary process or losing the team's speed.

• Raise the quality bar through hands-on design and code review, strong technical judgment, and clear examples of excellent product engineering.

• Take ownership of neglected or cross-cutting surfaces — including billing, files, and team rotations — and step into the work directly when needed.

• Help define how Product Engineering should evolve as the team grows, while remaining close to customers, the product, and the code.

What You Bring

We're looking for someone who combines strong product engineering judgment with meaningful people leadership experience — and who genuinely wants both parts of the job.

• 6+ years of product engineering experience, including experience leading or managing engineers at a company with a high product bar.

• Strong current technical ability and the credibility to contribute to architecture, design reviews, debugging, and production-quality code.

• Experience building polished, customer-facing product surfaces and the product taste to explain what makes an experience excellent.

• A track record of coaching engineers, giving direct and useful feedback, handling performance issues, and helping people expand their scope.

• Evidence of leading through context, judgment, and contribution — not only through reporting lines or process.

• Strong cross-functional instincts and experience working directly with Product and Design to set direction and make difficult tradeoffs.

• A track record of hiring strong product engineers in a competitive market, including personal sourcing and closing.

• Comfort moving between visible product work and unglamorous foundations such as billing, files, operational ownership, and on-call health.

• The ability to operate with urgency and clarity in a fast-moving environment where the team and roadmap are still taking shape.

• Genuine excitement about voice AI and building the product layer on top of state-of-the-art models.

Nice-To-Haves

• Experience in developer tools, AI infrastructure, or products built for technical users.

• Experience helping grow a product engineering team from roughly 5 to 15 engineers while remaining hands-on.

• Experience with PLG, self-serve growth, billing, or other end-to-end product surfaces.

Note: Cartesia participates in E-Verify and will provide the federal government with Form I-9 information to confirm employment eligibility after hire.

More Details

🏢 In-office policy: We’re an in-person team based out of offices in 🇺🇸 San Francisco, 🇬🇧 London and 🇮🇳 Bangalore. We love being in the office, hanging out together, and learning from each other every day.

🌎 Visa sponsorship: We provide visa sponsorship support and assess each circumstance on a case-by-case basis. However, visa sponsorship is dependent on many factors, including the role you are applying for, and the location you are going to be based, and so we can't always guarantee success. Your Recruiter will work with you to understand your visa sponsorship needs from the first call.

🚢 We ship fast. All of our work is novel and cutting edge, and execution speed is paramount. We have a high bar, and we don’t sacrifice quality or design along the way.

🤝 We support each other. We have an open & inclusive culture that’s focused on giving everyone the resources they need to succeed.

Our Benefits (US Employees Only)

💰 Compensation Competitive base salary alongside attractive equity package.

🩺 Health Insurance Fully covered medical insurance along with dental and vision for you and your family.

🧑‍🧑‍🧒‍🧒 Parental Leave 9 weeks paternity & 12 weeks maternity leave

🏦 401(k)

🚆 Commuter Allowance A monthly stipend to help you get to and from the office.

🏖️ Flexible PTO Take as much time as you need to recharge your batteries.

🍲 Meals & Snacks Lunch, dinner and plenty of snacks, provided daily.

🦖 Your own personal Yoshi

Our Commitment to Equal Opportunity

Cartesia is an equal opportunity employer. We consider qualified applicants without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, genetic information, or any other legally protected status.