Voice AI Engineering Principal

Overview

Voice AI Engineering Principal

About the Role

Zendesk is seeking an innovative and visionary Voice AI Engineering Director to lead and accelerate our voice and conversational AI initiatives. In this pivotal role, you will spearhead the development and deployment of cutting-edge AI/ML technologies focused on Speech and Natural Language Processing (NLP), shaping the future of voice-enabled customer experiences at scale.

You will oversee researchers innovating across Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR), Text-to-Speech (TTS), Large Language Models (LLM), and voice conversational systems, driving impactful solutions that power Zendesk’s intelligent voice products.

• Lead the research, design, and engineering of next-generation Voice AI solutions including noise-robust multilingual ASR, neural TTS, and advanced QA dialog systems fine-tuned with state-of-the-art pretrained models (e.g., BERT, GPT).

• Build, mentor, and scale a high-performing AI/ML engineering team specialized in speech processing, NLP, and deep learning while fostering an innovative, research-driven culture.

• Drive collaboration across research scientists, software engineers, and product teams to transform advanced AI models into robust, scalable production systems.

• Oversee large-scale AI research and development projects, ensuring delivery of high-quality, real-world solutions optimized for diverse tasks and computing environments.

• Architect and implement AI models leveraging deep learning algorithms such as DNNs, CNNs, RNNs, and Transformer-based architectures across speech and NLP pipelines.

• Champion best practices in software development, including CI/CD, code reviews, version control (Git), and refactoring to support efficient and maintainable codebases.

• Stay ahead of the curve by continuously researching and applying the latest breakthroughs in AI/ML to enhance Zendesk’s voice capabilities.

• Collaborate with stakeholders to define technical vision, roadmap, and strategy for voice AI products that deliver superior user experiences and business impact.

• Passionate about the frontiers of AI/ML and driven to apply breakthrough technologies to real-world voice and language problems.

• Proven expertise developing and applying speech and NLP models, with extensive hands-on experience using DL frameworks such as PyTorch, Tensor Flow, Keras, and Huggingface Transformers.

• Deep knowledge of AI architectures including DNN, CNN, RNN, Transformers, and experience fine-tuning large pre-trained models (e.g., BERT, GPT).

• Skilled in programming languages and tools including Python, C++, Java, R, Linux/Shell scripting, with strong engineering discipline in software development lifecycle.

• Demonstrated leadership in building and guiding AI/ML teams, through complex research and engineering challenges.

• Experience deploying voice AI systems in production, including ASR, diarization, TTS, NMT, and dialog systems with a focus on noise robustness and multilingual capabilities.

• Track record of managing large-scale research projects with real-world impact, combining fundamental research with prototyping and product delivery.

• Background in developing AI-driven speech technologies for complex domains such as autonomous pilot systems or court reporting is a highly valued asset.

• Hold an M.S. in Engineering, Computer Science, or a related field, with a strong foundation in machine learning, speech processing, and on-device AI for real-time and low-power applications.

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