Linguistics PhD Expert
San Francisco
Software /
Full Time /
On-site
At Wispr Flow, we're building voice intelligence that truly understands you. Our team of designers, AI researchers, and engineers is crafting voice interfaces that are both useful and ubiquitous, paving the way for a future where voice-first experiences replace screen-first technologies.
Our first product, Wispr Flow, has become the first consumer voice dictation platform to break the keyboard barrier: making people use voice more than their keyboards.
Wispr Flow is looking for a linguistics PhD expert to lead our work in defining customization and personalization for Wispr Flow's voice dictation outputs and style. You will work closely with ML scientists to define the different preferences users might have, from colloquial casual English to genZ messaging styles to polished formal academic writing. You will coordinate a team of external experts to annotate our large datasets.
If you like being at the bleeding edge of AI, looking closely at data, and defining and teaching others how to interpret data, this role is for you.
Our values
- High agency: Take initiative to solve problems that you see. We make decisions quickly, and disagree and commit to move forward as a team.
- Open communication: Lean into debate, discussion, and uncomfortable conversations. We maintain integrity and say the things that are hard to say because we trust one another and assume other people have good intentions.
- User obsessed: Design technology that makes people's experience more natural and seamless. We really care about building an exceptional user experience.
- Detail-focused: Exceptional outcomes come from exceptional attention to detail - down to every interaction and every pixel.
What you’ll do
- Create and defining different customization options for voice dictation tone and style
- Manage an external set of language experts to annotate that data (10-20 external experts)
- Create and set explicit style guidelines that explain how to deal with ambiguity
- Coach external labelers
- Collaborate closely with ML Scientists and influence overall R&D direction to determine what data to collect, label, etc
- Ensure high performance of Flow across languages
- Integrate linguistic style preferences across Flow's upcoming voice assistant
Who you are
- Linguistics PhD with 2-4 years of work experience in a related field
- Able to coach people and give detailed feedback to expert labelers
- Have one of: formal editing experience, formal linguistics training, or professional translation experience
- Love to get hands dirty with data
- Self-aware about decisions in editing/writing/communications
- You respect individual preferences and want to understand them
- Multilingual speaker
- You have meticulous attention to detail and are unwilling to settle
- Can write and communicate clearly
- Have some familiarity with LLM development and development cycles or are excited to learn
What we provide
- High-velocity innovation: Rapid experimentation, lean autonomous teams, and minimal bureaucracy.
- End-to-end ownership: Lead ML initiatives from concept to massive scale
- Top-tier team: Collaborate with some of the brightest minds in AI, engineering, and design
$120,000 - $160,000 a year
The compensation band is an estimate and depends on experience. In addition to this base compensation, your offer will include stock options, benefits, and relocation reimbursements.
We've raised $56M from top-tier VCs like Menlo Ventures, NEA, 8VC, and Neo. Our angels and advisors include Chester Chipperfield (launched the first Apple Watch), Arash Ferdowsi (CTO, Dropbox), and Will Ahmed (CEO, Whoop). Our founders are Stanford alums and have previously sold a company and run a team at a deep tech startup with over 100M in funding.
We take care of our full-time employees:
• Generous health, dental, and vision coverage
• Generous parental leave, unlimited PTO (we encourage taking days off!)
• Visa assistance
• 401k match
• Commuter benefits
• Relocation assistance
At Wispr, diversity is important to us.
At Wispr, we believe that true innovation starts with people from diverse backgrounds coming together, bridging ideas, and collaborating. Wispr is proud to be an Equal Employment Opportunity employer and is committed to providing an environment of mutual respect where employment opportunities are available to all applicants and teammates without regard to race, color, religion, sex, pregnancy (including childbirth, lactation, and related medical conditions), national origin, age, physical and mental disability, marital status, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, genetic information (including characteristics and testing), military and veteran status, and any other characteristic protected by applicable law.
