Part-Time Arabic Linguist – AI & TTS

Proudly recognized as a Great Place to Work®, we are an AI-native customer experience platform purpose-built for emerging markets. With more than 25 years of conversational AI research and development, we serve over 5,000 enterprises across MENA and are pioneering sovereign, agentic AI through our Agentic Studio platform. As the category takes shape, the way Unifonic is perceived — by buyers, analysts, media, and the broader market — is a strategic asset. This role owns that perception. We thrive on creativity, collaboration, and fun, where every idea is welcomed and celebrated. As shareholders in the company, we’re more than just communicators—we’re innovators shaping the future together. We are Unifones. Join us and be part of something extraordinary! Meet the team! Our Engineering team is responsible for designing, developing, and maintaining the systems and technologies that drive Unifonic’s solutions. We work closely with other departments to ensure our products and services meet the needs of our customers. If you are passionate about technology and are excited about working on cutting-edge communication and engagement solutions, we want you on our team. As an Arabic Linguist, you will support our Text-to-Speech (TTS) team with linguistic analysis, Arabic dialect expertise, pronunciation and speech-quality evaluation, and voice-related projects. The ideal candidate will have strong expertise in Saudi Arabic dialects, with native or near-native proficiency in the Najdi dialect highly preferred. This is a great opportunity to work closely with an AI and TTS team, contribute linguistic expertise to real production projects, and help improve the quality, accuracy, and naturalness of Arabic speech technology. Help us shape the future of communications by: - Conducting research on the phonological, morphological, and syntactic structures of Arabic — with a focus on Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) and Saudi/Gulf dialects, particularly the Najdi dialect — and providing linguistic guidance for their integration into Sestek products. - Acting as a linguistic point of contact for the R&D / AI team and translating linguistic requirements into clear, actionable input for engineers. - Analyzing and review pronunciation data, including grapheme-to-phoneme mappings, diacritization/tashkeel, and lexicons, for Arabic TTS and speech recognition systems. - Evaluating TTS output quality in terms of pronunciation accuracy, prosody, dialect authenticity, and naturalness, with a particular focus on Saudi Arabic. - Providing linguistic guidance and support for Arabic voice data collection and speech synthesis projects, including identifying and onboarding suitable voice talents when needed. - Supporting the coordination and review of voice recording and editing processes to ensure linguistic accuracy and consistency. - Supporting the onboarding and coordination of external Arabic language consultants when needed and providing guidance on linguistic requirements. - Reviewing and providing linguistic feedback on data annotation activities and guidelines, ensuring appropriate quality standards for Arabic and Saudi dialect data. - Collaborating closely with the Sestek TTS and AI Research teams and providing ongoing linguistic expertise throughout the project.

Conduct research on Arabic phonology, morphology, and syntax (MSA and Saudi/Gulf dialects, Najdi preferred) for integration into TTS products; serve as linguistic point of contact for R&D/AI, translating requirements into actionable input for engineers; analyze and review pronunciation data (grapheme-to-phoneme, diacritization, lexicons) for Arabic TTS and ASR; evaluate TTS output for pronunciation accuracy, prosody, dialect authenticity, and naturalness (focus on Saudi Arabic); provide linguistic guidance for Arabic voice data collection and speech synthesis projects, including onboarding voice talents; support coordination and review of voice recording/editing processes; onboard external Arabic language consultants as needed; review linguistic data annotations and guidelines for Arabic and Saudi dialect data; collaborate with Sestek TTS and AI Research teams to provide continuous linguistic expertise throughout the project.