Forward Deployed Engineer

About us ai-coustics is building the reliability layer for Voice AI, the system that closes the gap between raw audio input and reliable machine understanding in production. By combining state-of-the-art speech and audio research with real-time, production-grade SDKs, we test, observe, and enable Voice AI systems to work in any environment. Our software is used by fast-growing Voice AI companies across Europe and the United States whose products require reliable performance at scale: call center agents, voice agents, telephony apps, and enterprise voice assistants. We believe voice will become the main interface for technology and ai-coustics is building the foundational infrastructure to make audio input reliable, measurable, and easy to deploy. We are backed by leading early-stage investors including Connect Ventures, Partech, Inovia Capital, as well as angel investors from HuggingFace, DeepMind and Amazon with deep expertise in AI and developer infrastructure. These partners share our vision and are helping us build a world-class team operating with high levels of responsibility and velocity. We look for people who take ownership, think systemically, and want to solve challenging real-world problems in close collaboration with our customers. If you’re motivated by developing technology that is used in practice, shaping an emerging category and setting a new standard for how voice AI works in the real world, you’ll feel at home at ai-coustics. Role Overview We are looking for a versatile and highly capable Forward Deployed Engineer based in Berlin, Germany to join ai-coustics. In this role, you will combine strong technical execution with clear, confident communication, working directly with customers to ensure they realize the full value of our technology. You will own customer onboarding and implementations end-to-end, support production deployments, and act as a close partner to both customers and internal teams, feeding real-world insights back into product development and ongoing innovation. Tasks Own technical onboarding and production deployment of ai-coustics’ real-time and batch Speech & Audio Enhancement products for Voice AI and Voice Agent customers, from first proof-of-concept to live production systems. Design, build, and integrate Voice AI and agent stacks using frameworks such as Pipecat, LiveKit, and adjacent ecosystems (telephony providers, ASR, TTS, LLM-based agents), with a strong focus on low latency and audio quality. Act as the technical expert on real-time audio enhancement within complex agent architectures: diagnose issues related to codecs, sampling rates, streaming pipelines, buffering, model configuration, and end-to-end system performance. Develop custom benchmarks and evaluation setups to prove ai-coustics’ impact in customer-specific environments (e.g. noisy call center audio, agent latency budgets, downstream ASR accuracy), often as a decisive step in technical evaluations and sales cycles. Support customers in high-stakes production environments, where audio quality directly impacts conversion, customer satisfaction, or operational efficiency. Build reference implementations and demos (e.g. end-to-end Voice AI agents with LiveKit or Pipecat) that showcase best practices and accelerate customer adoption. Feed real-world insights back into the product roadmap: identify recurring integration friction, missing features, and quality edge cases, and collaborate closely with Product, Core Engineering, and ML teams. Create scalable onboarding assets such as integration guides, benchmark templates, SDK examples, and troubleshooting documentation to enable a self-serve developer experience. Work closely on-site with the team in Berlin, collaborating across Engineering, Product, and Go-To-Market in a fast-moving, high-ownership startup environment. Requirements Demonstrated experience in early-stage, high-growth startups: you have operated in environments with limited process, rapidly evolving products, and high personal ownership, and are comfortable taking responsibility beyond a narrowly defined role. Proven experience building Voice AI or conversational agent systems, including hands-on work with frameworks such as Pipecat and/or LiveKit, and their surrounding real-time audio and streaming infrastructure. Customer-facing engineering experience (Forward Deployed, Solutions, or Implementation Engineering), ideally in a developer-first or ML infrastructure company serving technical buyers. Strong software engineering skills with production experience (e.g. Python, TypeScript/Node.js, Rust/C++ bindings), and the ability to read, debug, and extend SDKs and APIs. Deep understanding of real-time audio systems: latency constraints, buffering, codecs, sampling rates, streaming architectures, and performance trade-offs. Experience designing and running custom benchmarks or evaluations to demonstrate technical value, compare system performance, and support technical buying decisions. Comfort working with ML-powered products: ability to reason about model behavior, quality trade-offs, failure modes, and real-world performance without requiring a research background. Excellent communication and stakeholder skills: capable of leading technical deep dives, aligning with customer engineering teams, and translating complex audio/ML topics into actionable guidance. High-ownership startup mindset: bias toward action, comfort with ambiguity, and willingness to take responsibility for customer success end-to-end. Ability and willingness to work on-site in Berlin, Germany as part of a highly collaborative, fast-paced team. Benefits Opportunity to work at a rapidly growing Voice AI startup, backed by top investors. Compensation and equity: Competitive salary package, additional benefits and stock options, enabling you to take part in the company’s success. Startup Culture: Dynamic, fast-paced environment with passionate and collaborative colleagues. High Impact: Groundbreaking startup at a pivotal growth stage, making a real difference in how people experience audio. Ownership & Autonomy: Take full ownership of projects and ship fast. Work With the Best: World-class team of engineers and builders with ample room for professional growth. Contribute to the Future: Define the landscape of Voice AI technology. If you are ready to lead the charge in revolutionizing Voice AI and drive our startup to new heights, we would love to hear from you. Apply today to join the ai-coustics team