Staff Voice AI Scientist, Toast
$155-248k
Point of sale and management system for restaurants
Job no longer available
Point of sale and management system for restaurants
1001+ employees
Job no longer available
$155-248k
1001+ employees
Company mission
Toast's mission is to enrich the food experience for all.
Role
Who you are
- Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, AI, Machine Learning, or related field
- 7+ years of ML software development experience with hands-on experience in voice AI, speech processing, or conversational AI systems
- A proven track record of shipping Agentic Voice AI solutions in production at scale
- Deep expertise in automatic speech recognition (ASR), text-to-speech (TTS), and speech-to-speech (S2S) model development and evaluation and voice agent systems
- Familiarity with voice AI toolkits such as Whisper, Koruru TTS, Hugging Face Transformers, or OpenAI Realtime API
- Extensive background in voice AI technologies is required, with demonstrated expertise in toolkits such as Whisper, ESPNet, Koruru TTS, Hugging Face Transformers, and OpenAI Realtime API
- Strong background in machine learning and signal processing
- Proficiency in Python, Java/Kotlin and SQL and experience with ML frameworks like PyTorch or TensorFlow
- Experience in software engineering best practices and tools including object-oriented programming, test-driven development, CI/CD, git, shell scripting, task orchestration (Airflow)
- Experience with microservice-based architecture, preferably with AWS tooling (SageMaker, DynamoDB, Athena, etc.)
- Strong communication skills, with a track record of technical leadership and cross-functional collaboration
Desirable
- Experience with real-time speech systems, including streaming ASR or low-latency TTS/S2S
- Familiarity with open-source speech toolkits: Kokoro TTS, ESPnet, Fairseq, OpenAI Whisper, or equivalent
- Experience building interactive, embodied, or voice-based agents using LLMs or hybrid architectures
- Background in deploying models to edge/mobile environments or with hardware acceleration
What the job involves
- Toast is looking for a Staff Voice AI Scientist to bring Voice AI capabilities into the Toast platform
- You will work with engineers, data scientists and product managers to turn Voice AI solutions into business impact across product lines, including phone ordering, Toast Local app, drive thru, kiosk and menu recommendations
- We need your help to create the Voice AI capabilities and infrastructure that enables our data scientists and product engineers to build, release, and monitor models at scale
- Apply Voice AI expertise to help further define and improve the capabilities of Toast’s product platform
- Design APIs and inference services to support voice interactions across Toast platforms and devices
- Work closely with product teams to translate use cases into natural, efficient, and emotionally resonant voice interactions
- Lead model optimization efforts for latency, memory, and inference cost — including edge and mobile deployment if applicable
- Collaborate with data scientists and ML engineers to prototype and productionize new ideas in generative speech, multilingual processing, and agentic behavior
- Mentor junior engineers and contribute to fostering a culture of technical excellence
Our take
Running a restaurant means managing a stressful set of elements, all needing to work together seamlessly to create a good experience for diners. Toast helps to streamline processes, and puts an end to piles of paperwork, by providing a platform whereby tableside ordering, menu modifications, labour management, payroll, and more are all housed in one system that can run from a tablet.
Toast offers restaurant-grade hardware and cloud-based customisable payment solutions to serve clients from startup through to growth phase, as well as a service for established restaurants. By combining all the digital services a restaurant might need, the platform can act as the one and comprehensive solution for restaurants of any size, avoiding restaurateurs having to invest in a range of technologies.
Toast has over 70,000 restaurants on its books, from food trucks to national brands, and its mobile ordering and payment solutions have made it a recognized brand for consumers. The company's IPO in 2021 saw it valued at over $30 billion and since then, it has added more features to its product suite including wholesale and catering order tools. Toast then, has proven its place as an indispensable player in the restaurant space.
Freddie
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Insights
28% employee growth in 12 months
Company
Funding (last 2 of 6 rounds)
Feb 2020
$400m
SERIES F
Apr 2019
$250m
SERIES E
Total funding: $899m
Company benefits
- Peer and company recognition programs
- Unlimited Vacation
- Sabbatical opportunity after five years
- Professional Development Reimbursement Program
- Commitment to Employee Wellness through resources such as a quarterly Wellness Stipend
- Various peer and company recognition programs
- 401(k) and matching
- Medical, Dental, & Vision Coverage
- Mental Health Benefits
- Subsidized backup childcare
Company HQ
Fenway–Kenmore, Boston, MA
Leadership
Steve Fredette
(President)They studied at MIT before co-founding Klick Mobile in 2009 and spending almost 7 years at Endeca. They left their Management role in June 2012 having co-founded Toast in May.
Aman Narang
(CEO)Having studied Computer Science at MIT, they worked at Endeca for 5 years. They moved from working as Product Manager to work full-time as President of Toast in 2013, having co-founded it the previous year.
Jonathan Grimm
(CTO)They also studied Computer Science at MIT before working as an Engineer for Endeca for over 4 years. They worked at Oracle for 5 months prior to co-founding Toast in May 2012.
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