Phonetician / Linguist (fr-CA & en-CA)

Omilia • Quebec, QC

7d

About The Position

Ensure the linguistic and phonetic quality of Omilia’s multilingual Text-to-Speech (TTS) systems by designing phoneme inventories, developing lexicons, and reviewing audio corpora to support enterprise-grade voice experiences. This role involves conducting systematic phonological and phonetic analysis of Canadian French and Canadian English, documenting language-specific features, and producing structured language profiles for TTS model training and evaluation. The position requires defining and maintaining phoneme inventories, mapping them to IPA and TTS-specific conventions, and auditing corpora for optimal audio reference selections. Additionally, the role involves building and maintaining pronunciation lexicons, including G2P rules and exceptions, reviewing machine-generated G2P outputs, and conducting pronunciation audits. The Phonetician/Linguist will also annotate audio corpora, develop evaluation protocols, produce error analyses, and define linguistic criteria for TTS corpus selection and prompt design. Collaboration with TTS engineers to integrate linguistic artifacts into synthesis pipelines and contributing to internal documentation and research discussions are also key aspects of this position.

Requirements

• M.Sc. or Ph.D. in Linguistics, Phonetics, Computational Linguistics, or related field.
• Proven experience building pronunciation lexicons or G2P systems for TTS or ASR.
• Deep knowledge of phonological theory, articulatory and acoustic phonetics.
• Proficiency with IPA and at least one machine-readable phoneme notation system (X-SAMPA, ARPAbet, etc.).
• Experience with corpus annotation tools (Praat, ELAN, WebAnno, etc.).
• Strong analytical and documentation skills.
• Fluency in English; proficiency in at least one additional language relevant to Omilia’s markets.
• Technical skills: Praat, ELAN, Audacity, PLS/CMUdict/SSML lexicon formats, Phonetisaurus/Sequitur/neural G2P, basic Python or shell scripting, TTS text normalization.

Responsibilities

• Conduct systematic phonological and phonetic analysis of the Canadian French and Canadian English languages.
• Document language-specific features (prosody, stress, tone, coarticulation, dialect variation).
• Produce structured language profiles for TTS model training and evaluation.
• Define and maintain phoneme inventories; map to IPA and TTS-specific conventions.
• Corpus audits and optimal audio references selections for TTS target voice tuning
• Build and maintain pronunciation lexicons, including G2P rules and exceptions.
• Review and correct machine-generated G2P outputs; conduct pronunciation audits.
• Annotate audio corpora, develop evaluation protocols, and produce error analyses.
• Define linguistic criteria for TTS corpus selection and design prompts for data collection.
• Collaborate with TTS engineers to integrate linguistic artefacts into synthesis pipelines.
• Contribute to internal documentation and participate in research discussions.

Benefits

• Fixed compensation
• Long-term employment with the working days vacation
• Development in professional growth (courses, training, etc)
• Being part of successful cutting-edge technology products that are making a global impact in the service industry
• Proficient and fun-to-work-with colleagues
• Apple gear

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior
• Number of Employees: 11-50 employees