Arabic Linguist AI & TTS

About Unifonic

Unifonic is an AI-native customer experience platform focused on emerging markets, with over 25 years of research and development in conversational AI. The company serves over 5,000 enterprises across MENA and is developing sovereign, agentic AI through its Agentic Studio platform. Unifonic is recognized as a Great Place to Work®.

Role Overview: Arabic Linguist – AI & TTS

Unifonic is seeking an Arabic Linguist to support its Text-to-Speech (TTS) team. This part-time role, based in Riyadh, Riyadh Province, involves providing linguistic analysis, Arabic dialect expertise, pronunciation and speech-quality evaluation, and support for 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), and provide linguistic guidance for their integration into Sestek products.
• Act as a linguistic point of contact for the R&D / AI team and translate linguistic requirements into clear, 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 in terms of pronunciation accuracy, prosody, dialect authenticity, and naturalness, with a particular 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 when needed.
• Support the coordination and review of voice recording and editing processes to ensure linguistic accuracy and consistency.
• Support the onboarding and coordination of external Arabic language consultants when needed and provide 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 closely with the Sestek TTS and AI Research teams and provide ongoing linguistic expertise throughout the project.

Required Skills and Attributes

• Strong communication skills and comfort working with technical, non-linguist colleagues.
• Analytical thinking and problem-solving abilities, including the capacity to approach problems clearly, use data, and find solutions.
• Demonstrated ownership and accountability, taking responsibility and following projects through to completion.
• Ability to collaborate effectively with others and support team goals.
• Adaptability and a commitment to continuous learning of new skills or tools.
• Mentorship and knowledge sharing capabilities, helping others grow and sharing expertise.
• Resilience, maintaining composure under pressure and handling setbacks constructively.
• Commitment to quality and attention to detail, performing work carefully and striving for improvement.
• Advocacy for and innovation in best practices, efficiency, and new ideas.

Work Environment

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