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 the MENA region. The company is pioneering sovereign, agentic AI through its Agentic Studio platform, fostering an environment of creativity, collaboration, and innovation.

The Role: Arabic Linguist – AI & TTS

Unifonic is seeking an Arabic Linguist to join its Text-to-Speech (TTS) team. This part-time position, based in Riyadh, Riyadh Province, involves providing linguistic analysis, Arabic dialect expertise, pronunciation and speech-quality evaluation, and support for voice-related projects. The role 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, providing 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 for 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 when necessary.
• Support the coordination and review of voice recording and editing processes to ensure linguistic accuracy and consistency.
• Assist in the onboarding and coordination of external Arabic language consultants, 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.

Required Skills and Attributes

• Strong communication skills and comfort collaborating with technical, non-linguist colleagues.
• Analytical thinking and problem-solving abilities, with a data-driven approach to finding solutions.
• Demonstrated ownership and accountability, ensuring projects are followed 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.
• Resilience under pressure and constructive handling of setbacks.
• Commitment to quality and attention to detail, striving for continuous improvement.
• Advocacy for best practices, efficiency, and innovation.

Work Arrangement

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