Arabic Linguist AI & TTS

About Unifonic

Unifonic is an AI-native customer experience platform designed for emerging markets, recognized as a Great Place to Work®. With over 25 years of conversational AI research and development, Unifonic serves more than 5,000 enterprises across MENA and develops sovereign, agentic AI through its Agentic Studio platform.

The Role of Arabic Linguist – AI & TTS

Unifonic is seeking an Arabic Linguist to join its team in Riyadh, Riyadh Province. This part-time role supports the Text-to-Speech (TTS) team by providing linguistic analysis, Arabic dialect expertise, pronunciation and speech-quality evaluation, and assistance with voice-related projects. The position offers an opportunity to contribute linguistic expertise to production projects and enhance the quality, accuracy, and naturalness of Arabic speech technology.

Key Responsibilities

• Conduct 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. Provide linguistic guidance for integration into Sestek products.
• Serve as a linguistic point of contact for the R&D / AI team, translating linguistic requirements into actionable input for engineers.
• Analyze and review pronunciation data, including grapheme-to-phoneme mappings, diacritization/tashkeel, and lexicons, for Arabic TTS and speech recognition systems.
• Evaluate TTS output quality based on pronunciation accuracy, prosody, dialect authenticity, and naturalness, with a specific focus on Saudi Arabic.
• Provide linguistic guidance and support for Arabic voice data collection and speech synthesis projects, including identifying and onboarding suitable voice talents as needed.
• Support the coordination and review of voice recording and editing processes to ensure linguistic accuracy and consistency.
• Assist with the onboarding and coordination of external Arabic language consultants when required, providing guidance on linguistic requirements.
• Review and provide linguistic feedback on data annotation activities and guidelines, ensuring appropriate quality standards for Arabic and Saudi dialect data.
• Collaborate with the Sestek TTS and AI Research teams, offering ongoing linguistic expertise throughout projects.

Qualifications and Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in Linguistics, Arabic Language and Literature, Translation and Interpreting, or a related field.
• Native proficiency in Arabic, with a 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.

Work Environment

This is a part-time position that requires the ability to collaborate remotely with teams based in Türkiye and Saudi Arabia.