Job Details

Join to apply for the QA Engineer (Early Career) role at Phonely (YC S24).

Base pay range

$60,000.00/yr - $80,000.00/yr

About Phonely

Every day, billions of phone calls are made to businesses. AI will soon power the majority of them. Businesses need a way to build, simulate, integrate, and deploy voice AI agents—we are building this.

To create AI voice agents that can truly match human performance, we need 99.999% reliability. We've achieved this by building fine-tuned LLMs, real-time monitoring, Zapier-like automation, and robust infrastructure that can scale instantly.

We are scaling quickly—our company grew 22% week over week in YC, finishing in the top 5% of companies by revenue in our batch, closed a seed round, and haven't stopped growing. We are now looking for a Forward Deployed Engineer to join us in San Francisco (or willing to relocate) and help our customers scale to millions of calls.

What You Will Do

• Diagnose and debug issues across systems, including state inconsistencies, API failures, and AI behavior anomalies
• Collaborate with senior engineers to execute QA workflows, design adversarial test cases, and stress-test our Voice AI models for robustness and reliability.
• Use telemetry and metrics tools like Datadog to investigate production issues and support customer-facing incidents.
• Work directly with customers to understand technical needs and build integrations.
• Solve critical technical issues in real-time, troubleshooting infrastructure and API failures.

Competencies

• Programming ability with experience in backend engineering, API integrations, or full-stack development.
• Problem solver with a consultant mindset—able to diagnose issues and build solutions quickly.
• Clear communicator who can explain complex technical topics simply.
• High execution mentality—moves fast and takes ownership of outcomes.
• Ability to withstand long hours and flex scheduling as needed.

Why Join Us

“I worked for IBM for the past 10 years. I started working for Phonely 3 months ago and I could never imagine going back. The growth of this company since I joined has been insane—I feel like I'm living in a movie.”

— Aidan Hallett, Founding Engineer

At Phonely, you'll be working on the future of AI voice technology, solving problems that no humans have ever solved before, and changing the way people answer the phone forever.

Tech Stack

• Core Technologies: Python, Next.js, TypeScript
• AI Tools: OpenAI, Llama 3, Anthropic, Speech-to-Text, Text-to-Speech
• Infrastructure: AWS, Kubernetes, Datadog

Who Should Apply

• You're a student or recent grad with a strong technical foundation and a passion for building real-world products.
• You thrive in fast-paced, startup environments and are excited to learn by doing.
• You take initiative, ask questions, and aren't afraid to roll up your sleeves and figure things out.
• You're curious about AI and eager to work on cutting-edge voice technologies.
• You're excited by the idea of shaping the future of real-time, AI-powered voice interactions.
• You're down to work hard, move fast, and maybe stay up late solving interesting problems.

Day to Day

• Dive into real customer calls, pull out insights, and help make our AI smarter
• Build custom workflows and automations that power millions of calls
• Dig through logs, debug unusual edge cases, and solve problems that actually matter
• Stress-test new features before they hit production
• Work directly with clients—present findings, fix issues, and help them scale fast
• Collaborate with the engineering team to ship improvements quickly

It's hard work, but you'll learn a ton, move fast, and have fun doing it.

About The Interview Process

1. 15-minute interview: A quick call to discuss your experience, skills, and interest in Phonely.
2. Team Interview: Meet with key team members, learn about our culture, and discuss your potential role.
3. Technical Project: A short real-world coding project relevant to your role.
4. One-Week Live Co-Working Session: Join us on-site in San Francisco for a one-week trial period, working on real projects.

Seniority level

• Internship

Employment type

• Full-time

Job function

• Engineering and IT

Industries

• Administrative and Support Services