Senior AI Community Engineer

About the Role

As a Senior AI Community Engineer, you are the person who creates the venues (physical and digital) where developers discover voice AI, try it for the first time, and connect with the builders around them.

Where Developer Advocates prove what's possible through code and content, you prove it by putting a keyboard in a developer's hands. You run the builders night where 40 developers make their first API call. You design the workshop that turns curiosity into a working prototype. You build the community infrastructure that identifies the most engaged developers and turns them into Deepgram Champions.

Your primary output is programs, events, and activation infrastructure. You manage the end-to-end event lifecycle, the local community health of Deepgram's developer platforms, and the pipeline that converts event attendees into active, retained developers. You measure success by how many developers activate, not how many people saw your content.

This role is based in San Francisco. You are Deepgram's in-person presence in the Bay Area at meetups, hack nights, AI conferences, and the local builder community. You also execute Deepgram's broader event strategy and execution across the US, with ~25% travel.

What You'll Do

• Run Events End-to-End: Own the full lifecycle of DevRel events — first-party programs (builders nights, hack nights, virtual dev days), community developer conferences (CFP support, on-site activation), and DevRel's role at partner and industry events. You execute from planning through post-event follow-up and impact measurement.
• Build the SF Presence: Establish and maintain a regular cadence of in-person programming in the Bay Area that makes Deepgram the default gathering point for voice AI builders. Builders nights, workshop series, partner co-hosted events — you design the formats and run them.
• Design for Activation: Every event you run has a clear activation goal. Design hands-on workshop formats that get developers to a first API call during the session. Maintain workshop-ready demo infrastructure — facilitator guides, environment setup, and scaffolding that works for 40 people simultaneously.
• Own Community Health: Manage the health and growth of Deepgram's developer community across Discord, GitHub, Reddit, and social platforms. Run engagement rhythms — office hours, developer spotlights, social listening — and ship monthly friction reports that surface community-sourced issues to Product and Engineering.
• Build the Champions Pipeline: Identify, cultivate, and activate the most engaged developers in the community. Build the data and relationships needed to launch a formal Champions program — you know who your best builders are because you've worked with them, not because they're names on a spreadsheet.
• Measure What Matters: Track event-to-activation conversion as your primary success metric. What percentage of attendees make their first API call within 14 days? Connect your work to developer outcomes — sign-ups, activations, community growth, Champion pipeline — and report on impact, not just activity.
• Scale the Playbook: Document repeatable event playbooks, community engagement patterns, and workshop formats so the team can scale this work beyond one person and one geography.
• Coordinate Across the Business: Work with Field Marketing on trade shows, with Partnerships on co-hosted events, and with the Advocacy team to ensure the content and demos they produce land in front of real developers at your events.

What We're Looking For

• Experience: 3–5 years in Developer Relations, Community Management, Technical Event Production, or a related field. You've run developer-facing events and community programs — not just attended them.
• Event Execution: A track record of producing technical events — meetups, hack nights, workshops, conference activations — from concept through post-event measurement. You know the difference between an event that generates buzz and one that generates activations.
• Community Building: Experience growing and sustaining a developer community. You understand engagement loops, community health metrics, and when to lead vs. when to step back and let the community help itself.
• Technical Credibility: You don't need to be a Staff engineer, but you need to be technical enough to triage developer questions live, run a workshop on API integrations, and maintain demo infrastructure. Comfortable with JavaScript or Python and familiar with API-first development.
• AI-First Mindset: You use AI tools in your daily workflow — for planning, content, research, automation. You're building with AI, not just talking about it.
• Local Presence: Based in San Francisco with the ability to be Deepgram's consistent in-person presence in the Bay Area. ~25% travel beyond the region for conferences and team gatherings.
• High Autonomy: You find the gaps, design the format, and drive to outcomes without waiting to be handed a plan.

Preferred / Nice-to-Have

• Developer Event Production at Scale: Experience producing events for 50–200+ developers, including logistics, A/V, catering coordination, and venue management. Bonus if you've produced hybrid or virtual events.
• Workshop Design: A portfolio of hands-on technical workshops you've designed and facilitated — ideally with measurable activation or completion outcomes.
• Community Tooling: Experience with community platforms (Discord, Discourse, Orbit, Common Room) and community analytics. Bonus if you've built custom community tooling or automation.
• Media & Real-time Protocols: Familiarity with WebSockets, WebRTC, or real-time audio — enough to understand how Deepgram's technology works and explain it to developers in a workshop setting.
• Partnership Coordination: Experience working across organizational boundaries to co-produce events or programs with external partners.
• Champions / Ambassador Programs: Experience designing or running a developer champions, MVP, or ambassador program.
• Content as a Complement: While content isn't your primary output, the ability to produce event recaps, community spotlights, or short-form social content is a plus.

Why This Role MattersDeepgram wins when developers move from "is this possible?" to "this is in production" with zero friction. The Bay Area is home to the densest concentration of AI builders and voice AI startups in the world. This role puts Deepgram in the room — at the hack night, at the meetup, in the community spaces where developers are making technology decisions. As a Community Engineer, you don't just tell developers what's possible — you create the experience where they prove it to themselves.