Cresta
Contact-center AI: real-time agent assist, conversational AI, coaching, and analytics for large enterprise teams. Spun out of Stanford AI. Last valued at $1.6B.
What is Cresta?
Cresta is an enterprise AI company that builds generative and real-time AI for contact centers. Its products help large customer-service and sales organizations by giving agents live suggestions during calls and chats, automating routine conversations with AI agents, coaching human agents from every interaction, and surfacing analytics across millions of conversations. Cresta was founded in 2017, spun out of Stanford AI research by Zayd Enam (who did his PhD in the Stanford AI Lab) together with Sebastian Thrun, the founder of Google X, Udacity, and the Stanford self-driving-car project. Ping Wu, previously a co-founder of Google Contact Center AI and a longtime Google engineering leader, serves as CEO. Cresta has raised roughly $270M across Series A through D from Greylock, Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, and others; the most recent round (Series D, 2024) valued the company at approximately $1.6B. The customer base skews toward large enterprises in telecom, financial services, insurance, travel, and retail, where contact-center headcount is high and small percentage improvements in conversion or handle time translate into large dollar figures. Headquartered in San Francisco, Cresta runs a remote-friendly model with roughly 500 employees distributed across the US and additional engineering presence internationally.
Mission & values
Make every knowledge worker in the contact center dramatically more effective by putting real-time, self-improving AI alongside every customer conversation.
Qualifications
Cresta hires across engineering (machine learning, NLP and speech, backend, distributed systems, real-time infrastructure, security, frontend, data platform), applied AI research, product, design, developer relations, sales, sales engineering, customer success, professional services, marketing, and G&A. Application flow lives at cresta.com/careers. Machine-learning, applied-AI, and real-time-systems roles are the most active given the product depends on low-latency inference over live conversations. Location model is remote-friendly with a San Francisco hub; many US engineering and GTM roles are fully remote, while some leadership and specialized roles prefer Bay Area proximity. Candidates with production experience in LLMs, speech recognition, or real-time ML systems are strongly prioritized.
Leadership
Ping Wu
Chief Executive Officer
CEO of Cresta. Previously co-founded Google Contact Center AI and spent years as an engineering leader at Google building conversational-AI products.
Zayd Enam
Co-Founder
Co-founded Cresta in 2017 out of his PhD research in the Stanford AI Lab. Focused on applying real-time machine learning to expert human work.
Sebastian Thrun
Co-Founder & Chairman
Co-founded Cresta in 2017. Founder of Google X, Udacity, and the Stanford self-driving-car project. Adjunct professor at Stanford and a foundational figure in modern AI and robotics.
Hiring process
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1
Apply at cresta.com/careers
Browse open roles and submit through the Cresta careers portal.
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2
Recruiter screen
Confirms role fit, target level, location preference (remote or Bay Area), and salary expectations.
About 7 days
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3
Hiring manager interview
Deep conversation with the manager who owns the position and the team context.
About 7 days
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4
Technical or role-specific loop
Engineering and applied AI: coding, ML system design, and often a take-home or live modeling exercise on real-time inference. GTM: case study and role-play. Product and design: portfolio and case review.
About 14 days
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5
Values interview and offer
Cross-functional interview on collaboration and ownership, followed by offer with base, bonus, and equity.
About 7 days
Funding
Awards & recognition
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Series D at approximately $1.6B valuation · 2024
Cresta
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Spun out of Stanford AI research · 2017
Cresta
Company information
- Industry: Contact-Center AI / Conversational AI / Enterprise SaaS
- Location: San Francisco, CA, USA (Remote-Friendly)
- Founded: 2017
- Employees: 500
- Website: cresta.com ↗
- LinkedIn: Company page ↗
- X / Twitter: Profile ↗