Part-Time Arabic Linguist – AI & TTS

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.

• 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.

• Bachelor's degree in Linguistics, Arabic Language and Literature, Translation and Interpreting, or a related field.
• Native proficiency in Arabic, with strong command of MSA and Saudi Arabic dialects. Native or near-native proficiency in the Najdi dialect is strongly preferred.
• Familiarity with Arabic dialects beyond Saudi Arabic is also preferred.
• Strong knowledge of Arabic phonology and morphology, and familiarity with the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA).
• Good command of English, as it will be the working language with the R&D / AI team.
• Strong communication skills and comfort working with technical, non-linguist colleagues.
• Familiarity with speech technologies (TTS/ASR), voice data collection, or NLP is a plus.
• Experience working with Saudi Arabic dialects, particularly the Najdi dialect, is highly preferred.
• Ability to work on a part-time basis and collaborate remotely with teams based in Türkiye and Saudi Arabia

• Phonetics & IPA
• G2P, diacritization (Tashkeel), Arabic lexicons
• Pronunciation, prosody & speech-quality evaluation
• Speech synthesis & voice recording workflows