Retell AI

Supercharge Your Contact Center Operations with AI Phone Agents

Senior Software Engineer, Support Automations

$200K - $290KSan Francisco Bay Area
Job type
Full-time
Role
Engineering, Full stack
Experience
3+ years
Visa
US citizen/visa only
Apply to Retell AI and hundreds of other fast-growing YC startups with a single profile.
Apply to role ›

About the role

ABOUT RETELL AI

Retell AI is using the first principles to reimagine the call center with cutting edge voice AI.

Since launching 18 months ago, thousands of companies now utilize Retell’s AI voice agents to handle sales, support, and logistics calls that once required large teams of human agents. Backed by Y Combinator, Alt Capital, and other leading investors, we have scaled to $36M ARR with a team of 20 people, up from $5M at the start of 2025.

Our vision for 2026 is to build a modern CX platform where entire contact centers are powered by AI. Instead of basic automation that needs constant human tuning, we’re creating intelligent AI “workers” that can act as frontline agents, QA analysts, and managers — continuously executing, monitoring, and improving customer interactions.

We’re growing quickly and looking for ambitious builders who want to tackle hard technical problems, move fast, and have real impact at one of the fastest-growing voice AI startups.

Let’s build the future together.

ABOUT THE ROLE

As a Senior Software Engineer, Support Automations at Retell, you will own the technical support function for a highly technical, agentic voice AI platform. This is a hands-on leadership role : you will personally debug complex customer issues, build AI agents and automations, and lead a growing team of support engineers.

You will operate at the intersection of engineering, customers, and product , ensuring world-class reliability, fast resolution, and scalable support economics as Retell grows.

This role is ideal for someone who enjoys solving hard technical problems under pressure, working directly with customers, and building systems and teams from the ground up.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

Support Fundamentals

  • Own end-to-end resolution of complex support tickets for a production, agentic AI platform.

  • Debug issues across agents, prompts, APIs, webhooks, logs, integrations, and telephony.

  • Build, configure, and test AI agents to reproduce and resolve customer issues.

  • Join live customer calls when needed to diagnose problems and restore confidence.

  • Own core support metrics including CSAT, NPS, SLA, and response times.

  • Define and improve support unit economics, including automation vs headcount tradeoffs.

Automation & Tooling

  • Design and build AI-driven support workflows and automations to reduce manual load.

  • Develop internal tools and dashboards for the support team with appropriate permissions and access control.

  • Improve observability, alerting, and debugging workflows to shorten time-to-resolution.

  • Identify recurring issues and turn them into automations, tooling, or product improvements.

Team Leadership & Management

  • Recruit, interview, onboard, and mentor support engineering team members.

  • Set quality bars, escalation guidelines, and on-call processes.

  • Run weekly analysis of feature requests, bug trends, and documentation gaps.

  • Partner closely with Engineering and Product to influence roadmap and reliability priorities.

Product & Feedback Loop

  • Translate customer pain points into clear, actionable feedback for Product and Engineering.

  • Help shape documentation, best practices, and customer-facing guidance.

  • Act as a voice of the customer while maintaining technical rigor and operational discipline.

YOU MIGHT THRIVE IF

  • Have 3+ years of experience in technical support, support engineering, solutions engineering, systems engineering, or similar roles.

  • Have supported a technical, developer-facing product in production.

  • Have 1+ year of experience at a startup , ideally in a support engineering role.

  • Are comfortable writing and debugging code ( Python & JavaScript ) for real use cases.

  • Have built or configured AI agents, workflows, or LLM-powered systems.

  • Are highly detail-oriented and calm under pressure when incidents occur.

  • Think analytically about metrics, root causes, and system-level improvements.

  • Communicate clearly with both technical and non-technical stakeholders.

JOB DETAILS

  • Cash: $200,000 - $290,000 base salary

  • Equity: Offers Equity

  • Location: Redwood City, CA, US (Relocation Provided)

  • US Visas: Retell AI is open to sponsoring work authorization for qualified candidates, including H1B/H-1B, TN, L-1, E-3, F-1 (OPT/CPT), and O-1 visas.

OTHER BENEFITS

  • 100% coverage for medical, dental, and vision insurance

  • $70/day DoorDash credit for unlimited breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks

  • $200/month wellness reimbursement (gym, fitness classes, etc.)

  • $300/month commuter reimbursement (gas, Caltrain, etc.)

  • $75/month phone bill reimbursement

  • $50/month internet reimbursement

COMPENSATION PHILOSOPHY

  • Best Offer Upfront: Choose from three cash-equity balance options, no negotiation needed.

  • Top 1% Talent: Above-market pay (top 5 percentile) to attract high performers.

  • High Ownership: Small teams, >$1M revenue/employee, and significant equity.

  • Performance-Based: Offers tied to interview performance, not experience or past salaries.

INTERVIEW PROCESS

  1. Recruiter Intro Call (15min): Learn about us and share your background.

  2. Technical First Round (45 min): Live debugging exercise in real a world scenario

  3. Onsite (3 hours)

#LI-JC1

About Retell AI

Retell is building the AI voice layer for every business.

We’re replacing outdated call centers with real-time AI voice agents that sell, support, and retain customers at scale.

Voice is still the most natural way humans communicate, yet it’s been stuck with legacy tech for decades. We’re changing that by bringing speed, empathy, and reliability to every phone conversation.

In under two years, thousands of companies now run on Retell. We’ve grown to $35M ARR, raised a $4.7M seed, and scaled a 24-person team, backed by Y Combinator, Altman Capital, and top-tier investors.

We’re now one of the top 50 AI apps in a16z’s rankings and a top-ranking startup on the Lean AI leaderboard.

We’re moving fast, tackling hard technical problems, and setting the standard for voice automation. If you want to help define the future of how businesses talk to customers, this is the place to do it.

Check us out on the Top Lean AI Native Companies Leaderboard at leanaileaderboard.com.

Retell AI
Founded:2023
Batch:W24
Team Size:50
Status:
Active
Location:San Francisco
Founders
Todd Li
Todd Li
Co-Founder
Evie Wang
Evie Wang
Founder
Bing Wu
Bing Wu
Founder
Weijia Yu
Weijia Yu
Founder
Zexia Zhang
Zexia Zhang
Founder