Software Engineer - VoIP (Go/Rust)

London, England, United KingdomEngineeringFull time

Who We Are

Element is the startup that employs the core team behind matrix.org— the leading project for secure, open decentralised communication.

Matrix’s mission is to make messaging as open as email — allowing everyone to choose where their data is hosted, enjoy private conversations thanks to advanced encryption, and ultimately be in control of their own communication.

Matrix powers Element, our flagship messaging apps for the web, iOS & Android, along with Element Matrix Services (EMS), our SaaS platform for personal & professional use.

We build things for everyone, and we know we can’t succeed without a diverse team. Our hiring process is designed to be humane and give candidates the best chance to show us what you can do. If we ever fall down on this, please let us know.

Element is heavily investing in building out Matrix as the missing signalling layer for WebRTC: providing an open and decentralised E2EE transport for negotiating media streams and data channels. On top, we have recently extended Matrix to support scalable decentralised E2EE group voice and video calling too (MSC3401). These are the base building blocks for visionary applications such as Element Call as well as the open metaverse (aka third room).

For the sake of scalability and reliability in conferencing, a selective forwarding unit (SFU) has proven to be one of the crucial components. The concept is already part of MSC3401. The VoIP team will be responsible for designing and implementing a Matrix compatible SFU which can be extended to support a generic media connector model. We also aim to connect to more legacy systems, e.g., SIP / PSTN, as we are trying to work on interoperability with a unified collaboration & communication vision.

Currently Element Call relies on a full-mesh node setup. You’d come along to help evolve the SFU, using a modern stack that ensures future compatibility and an end-to-end responsibility for VoIP conferencing.

Our VoIP team ensures that there is a communication layer for an open metaverse, so this is a great chance to make a big impact on the future of communication.

Since (almost) everything we do is open source you can get a great feel for exactly what it would be like to work on the team, come and say hi!