Sr. AI Engineer (Speech)

Dialpad; Northern (KY); On-site; USD 225,000 - 256,000; Full time

Job summary

Dialpad seeks a Sr. AI Engineer: Speech to lead the development of next-generation voice agents. You will shape models, decoders, and evaluation strategies, contributing across speech recognition, enhancement, and real-time inference. The role blends ML research with production engineering and offers mentorship across the team.

This role reports to the Sr. Manager, AI Speech and can be based in the US or Canada or work remotely, with a compensation focus on base salary in the California range.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of experience in speech ML, speech recognition, speech enhancement, audio AI, or related field with hands-on model work.
• Strong Python programming skills and experience with deep learning frameworks such as PyTorch, plus production code experience.
• Experience deploying low-latency, production-grade ML services in a cloud environment; observability is a plus.

Responsibilities

• Set technical direction for speech-model and decoder strategy across the team, guiding evaluation of state-of-the-art approaches and turning ideas into reliable improvements for voice agents.
• Lead research, adaptation, and implementation of ASR/STT, speech-enhancement, and related audio models that improve recognition robustness and latency.
• Improve the speech pipeline end to end, including decoding, endpointing, turn detection, streaming behavior, and Handoff between ASR, LLM, and TTS.
• Benchmark, prototype, fine-tune, distill models to create measurable product improvements.
• Design and ship production-grade services and inference components for real-time speech, ensuring observability and scalability.
• Mentor engineers and collaborate with cross-functional teams to translate speech advances into measurable gains.

Skills

Speech ML & Software Eng

Speech & Audio Expertise

SOTA Models & Decoders

Research & Problem Solving

Production Systems

Senior Technical Leadership

Tools

PyTorch

Python

GCP

Job description

About DialpadDialpad is the AI platform for customer experience, built to resolve customer problems in real time across voice and digital. Our AI agents learn from your best human agents and improve with every interaction, helping organizations understand their customers, deliver better experiences, increase operational efficiencies, and build a lasting competitive advantage.

Unlike legacy systems built to route and answer, or standalone agentic bot vendors built to deflect, Dialpad was built to resolve. Our AI agents and human agents operate on a single platform with shared context, allowing Agentic AI to resolve issues, advance deals, and eliminate busywork through automation while seamlessly handing conversations to humans when needed, with full context preserved.

Market-leading brands, including Randstad, Motorola Solutions, Netflix, the San Diego Padres, the Colorado Rockies Baseball Club, and Cal Athletics, trust Dialpad. Dialpad is backed by Andreessen Horowitz, GV, ICONIQ Capital, and T-Mobile.

Being a Dialer

At Dialpad, AI isn’t just a feature; it’s how our teams do their best work every day. We put powerful AI tools in every employee’s hands so they can move faster, think bigger, and achieve more.

We believe every conversation matters. And we’ve built the platform that turns those conversations into insight and action, for our customers and ourselves.

We look for people who are intensely curious and hold themselves to a high bar. Our ambition is significant, and achieving it requires a team that operates at the highest level. We seek individuals who embody our core traits: Scrappy, Curious, Optimistic, Persistent, and Empathetic.

Your role

As a Sr. AI Engineer: Speech, you’ll be a senior technical leader on our Speech Team, shaping the models and systems that make Dialpad’s next-generation AI voice agents accurate, natural, responsive, and trustworthy. You’ll guide the team on state-of-the-art speech models, decoders, and evaluation approaches, while making hands‑on contributions across speech recognition, enhancement, audio intelligence, and real‑time inference. You’ll bridge ML science and production engineering: whether you are strongest in research, systems, or both, you’ll help turn advances in speech technology into reliable improvements for customers. This role offers broad ownership, meaningful technical influence, and the opportunity to mentor engineers while driving the next generation of Dialpad’s voice experience.

This position reports to our Sr. Manager, AI Speech, and offers the opportunity to be based in our US or Canada Hub locations or work remotely.

What You’ll Do

• Technical Leadership & Direction: Set technical direction for speech-model and decoder strategy across the team, guiding evaluation of state-of-the‑art approaches and turning the strongest ideas into reliable improvements for our voice agents.
• Speech Model Development: Lead research, adaptation, and implementation of ASR/STT, speech‑enhancement, and related audio models that improve recognition robustness, clarity, and performance in real‑world calls.
• Decoders & Real‑Time Pipeline: Improve the speech pipeline end to end, including decoding, endpointing, turn detection, streaming behavior, and the handoff between ASR, LLM, and TTS, with a focus on natural interactions and low latency.
• Research & Evaluation: Benchmark, prototype, fine‑tune, distill, or otherwise adapt models and algorithms when doing so can create a meaningful advantage in voice‑agent quality, latency, cost, or reliability.
• Production ML & Backend: Design and ship production‑grade services and inference components for real‑time speech, partnering with platform and backend engineers to make model improvements observable, scalable, and maintainable.
• Cross‑Functional Leadership & Mentorship: Partner with speech, NLP, telephony, platform, product, and infrastructure engineers to shape the roadmap, lead technical reviews, mentor teammates, and translate speech advances into measurable gains for voice agents.

Skills You’ll Bring

• Speech ML & Software Engineering: Strong Python programming skills and experience with deep learning frameworks such as PyTorch, plus the ability to work effectively in production codebases. Candidates may come from a research‑heavy ML background, a backend/inference engineering background, or a combination of both.
• Speech & Audio Expertise: 5+ years of experience in speech ML, speech recognition, speech enhancement, audio AI, or a closely related field, with hands‑on experience improving models or systems used in real‑world applications.
• SOTA Models & Decoders: Deep understanding of modern ASR/STT architectures and decoding techniques, with the ability to evaluate, adapt, and explain trade‑offs among accuracy, robustness, streaming behavior, latency, and compute cost.
• Research & Problem Solving: A track record of taking ideas from papers, experiments, or emerging models and turning them into measurable product improvements through disciplined prototyping, analysis, and iteration.
• Production Systems: Experience building, deploying, and operating low‑latency, production‑grade ML or backend services in a cloud environment; experience with streaming inference, observability, and GCP is a plus.
• Senior Technical Leadership: Demonstrated ability to set technical direction, communicate clearly across disciplines, mentor engineers, and make pragmatic decisions that balance model quality, reliability, latency, and customer impact.

For exceptional talent based in California, the target base salary range for this position is posted below. Our salary ranges are determined by role, level, and location. The range displayed on each job posting reflects the target range for new hire salaries for the position. Within the range, individual pay is determined by work location and additional factors, including job‑related skills, experience, and relevant education or training. Your recruiter can share more about the specific salary range for your preferred location during the hiring process. Please note that the compensation details listed in US role postings reflect the base salary only, and do not include bonus, equity, or benefits.

California Salary Range

$224,500 — $256,000 USD

Why Join Dialpad

• Work at the center of the AI transformation in business communications
• Build and ship agentic AI products that are redefining how companies operate
• Join a team where AI amplifies every employee’s impact
• Competitive salary, comprehensive benefits, and real opportunities for growth

We believe in investing in our people. Dialpad offers competitive benefits and perks, cutting‑edge AI tools, and a robust training program that help you reach your full potential. We have designed our offices to be inclusive, offering a vibrant environment to cultivate collaboration and connection. Our exceptional culture, repeatedly recognized as a Great Place to Work , ensures that every employee feels valued and empowered to contribute to our collective success.

Dialpad is an equal‑opportunity employer. We are dedicated to creating a community of inclusion and an environment free from discrimination or harassment.