Applied Machine Learning Engineer, Speak

Speech

$170-280k

Offers Equity

Python

PyTorch

Mid, Senior and Expert level

San Francisco Bay Area

2-3 days a week in office

English language learning app

Open for applications

English language learning app

101-200 employees

B2CArtificial IntelligenceLanguagesLearningMobile

Open for applications

$170-280k

Offers Equity

Python

PyTorch

Mid, Senior and Expert level

San Francisco Bay Area

2-3 days a week in office

101-200 employees

B2CArtificial IntelligenceLanguagesLearningMobile

Company mission

To teach the next billion people English and become the de facto way people learn languages.

Job

Company

Role

Who you are

Extensive experience training and deploying custom deep learning models to production (experience with audio/speech strongly preferred)
Proficiency in Python and common Deep Learning frameworks like PyTorch
Strong communication skills and the ability to explain complex ML concepts to non-technical stakeholders
Sharp product sense and an ability to think broadly and cross-functionally about model quality in the context of user experience
4 - 10 years of industry experience

What the job involves

We are looking for an experienced Machine Learning Engineer to join our team and help develop cutting-edge phoneme recognition models to provide learners with effective pronunciation feedback
In this role you will take ownership of the end-to-end modeling pipeline, from training and experimentation to deployment and monitoring
You will also work closely with Product teams to design innovative learning experiences and measure the efficacy of production models as they affect our end users
We are a small, dynamic team where you will likely also contribute as a developer and thought partner on broader team projects like ASR, assessment, content personalization, and much more
Training and deploying phoneme recognition models end-to-end, including monitoring, performance tracking, and retraining
Expanding our Pronunciation Coach to provide precise feedback and integrate more broadly across our learning platform
Tracking metrics to measure performance of existing phoneme models across markets
Building out an assessment system to provide nuanced feedback on pronunciation, intonation, prosody, and more
Building and maintaining data infrastructure; i.e. audio data pipelines, training/evaluation datasets creation and management, labeling/active learning loop
Supporting the broader Speech & ML team (e.g. developing and localizing ASR models)

Our take

As the international language of business, there are many incentives for global entrepreneurs to learn English. With over 1.5 billion people actively learning the language to better their chances in the job market, the customer base for Speak, an AI tutor in the English language is potentially massive.

Investors believe so too, with tens of millions of dollars raised to fund the company from a range of international firms including Korean investors and the Silicon Valley-based OpenAI Fund. This surge of capital will help Speak develop its software and open new markets, especially in the US.

Speak is attempting to break into a human-saturated education market and the success of learning English fluently through its platform is yet to be proven. That being said, it has the potential to become a leading tool specifically in the mobile app sector if it can prove itself as efficient and accessible as the language learning platform DuoLingo.

Kirsty

Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle

Company

Funding (last 2 of 6 rounds)

Dec 2024

$78m

SERIES C

Jun 2024

$20m

SERIES B

Total funding: $165.8m

Company benefits

Speak offers all the standard benefits you'd expect at a tech startup, along with stipends for commuting, fitness, and learning!
In addition, team members are encouraged to travel between offices and we also host an annual company offsite

Company HQ

Potrero Hill, San Francisco, CA

Leadership

Connor Zwick

(CEO)

Previously Advisor at Chegg Inc, CEO at coco Controller, Flascards+ and Freelance Blogger at Envato.

Salary benchmarks

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