Careers at Keen Research

We’re building the future of voice technology: faster, leaner, and completely offline.

Big Tech companies made voice assistants creepy and bloated. We're taking voice back to where it belongs: fast, private, on-device, and embedded directly into the next generation of intelligent apps and hardware.

Our SDK helps developers create speech-enabled products without the cloud. That means no latency, no privacy compromises, and no internet required. This isn’t a toy – it’s powering tools that help kids learn how to read, patients manage medical devices, and enterprises build specialized voice interfaces that Big Tech companies would never touch.

We’re profitable, battle-tested, and bootstrapped by design. Our customers include startups, public companies, and global brands who are already building with our tools.

Now, we’re ready to scale. We’re looking for people who move fast, think clearly, and want to own part of something real.

We don’t do politics. We ship fast, learn faster, and obsess over quality.

If you’re hungry to grow, not afraid to build what’s never been built, and want to work with a tight team that gives a damn, then this is your moment.

Join us. Be early. Build the future.

Open roles:

Principal ASR Engineer

The role is based in Sausalito, California; we will consider remote candidates.

We’re building an offline-first, developer-first voice platform – starting with embedded ASR, moving into NLU and full-stack dialog.

This is not another AI wrapper. This is infrastructure. We run on mobile, embedded devices, and in web browsers; no cloud, no API calls, full privacy and speed.

Now we’re looking for a hardcore ASR engineer who wants to get their hands dirty and build what Big Tech companies won’t.

What You’ll Do:

  • Own the full stack of our SDK: from API design to model deployment on variety of devices
  • Train, optimize, and deploy models for speech recognition, NLU, and dialog – starting with ASR and expanding outward
  • Ship fast, iterate faster. Your code will be in production from day one
  • Influence both the technical architecture and the company’s strategic direction
  • Optionally: build and lead a team of engineers and researchers (or stay IC, we’re good either way)

Who You Are:

  • You’ve been deep in the weeds of ASR, NLU, or dialog systems, and you love it
  • You’ve built production ML pipelines and deployed models on real-world platforms
  • You move fast, make decisions under uncertainty, and optimize for outcomes, not perfection
  • You want to own what you build, and are ready for founder-level equity and impact

Your Toolkit Likely Includes:

  • C++ (non-negotiable), Python
  • PyTorch, Kaldi, OpenFst, end-to-end ASR
  • BLAS, low-level optimization
  • Nice to have: experience with build systems, Android, iOS, ObjC, Java

Why Join:

  • Founding-engineer level equity and competitive salary
  • Full technical ownership of product-critical systems
  • Zero bureaucracy, zero BS, just smart people solving real problems
  • The opportunity to build the offline voice stack the world actually needs

Don’t tick every box? If you’re obsessed with building speech technology and want to work with a small team that’s doing it right, let’s talk.

Apply now