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Machine Learning Researcher, Audio

Bland AISan FranciscoEngineering
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Salary
$160K - $280K USD
Job type
Full-time
Posted
20 Apr 2026
Status
Open · checked 7d ago

About this role

The Machine Learning Researcher, Audio position at Bland in San Francisco is an exciting engineering opportunity focused on advancing real-time voice AI technologies. This role suits a dedicated researcher with a passion for scaling natural, human-sounding telephony solutions at enterprise scale.

Role Overview

As a Machine Learning Researcher at Bland, the individual will work on foundational research and development across the core components of the voice stack, including speech-to-text, large language models, neural audio codecs, and text-to-speech. This position bridges the gap between theoretical research and large-scale training or production inference systems. The professional will design new modeling approaches, run rigorous experiments, and collaborate closely with engineering teams to deploy solutions into active customer environments serving millions of daily calls.

Key Responsibilities

Design, train, and scale large text-to-speech models capable of expressive, controllable, and natural-sounding output.
Develop neural audio codec-based text-to-speech architectures for efficient, high-fidelity generation while improving prosody, emotional expression, and multi-speaker robustness.
Build and fine-tune large speech-to-text systems robust to accents, background noise, telephony artifacts, and code switching using self-supervised pretraining.
Research and implement neural audio codecs that achieve extreme compression with minimal perceptual loss, exploring discrete and continuous latent representations.
Curate and process massive audio datasets across multiple languages and environments, designing staged training curricula.
Scale training across distributed GPU clusters with a strong focus on cost, throughput, and reliability.
Conduct rigorous ablation studies and measure improvements using both objective metrics and perceptual evaluations.

Requirements

Deep research foundations with experience in self-supervised learning, multimodal modeling, or generative modeling, and the ability to derive new formulations.
Hands-on expertise in voice modeling, including building or scaling text-to-speech, speech-to-text, or neural audio codec systems.
Systems and hardware awareness involving training and serving large models on modern accelerators, alongside knowledge of inference optimization techniques like quantization and memory efficiency.
Strong experimental rigor with a proven track record of designing controlled experiments, ablations, and working with offline benchmarks and live metrics.
A builder mentality suited for fast-moving startup environments, featuring a strong ownership mindset and comfort with ambiguous, unsolved problems.

Nice to Have

Experience with large-scale distributed training.
Research publications or open-source contributions in speech or AI.
Background in real-time speech systems or telephony.
PhD in machine learning, artificial intelligence, or a related field, or equivalent research impact.

Skills and Tools

Text-to-speech and speech-to-text modeling
Neural audio codecs and self-supervised learning
Distributed GPU training infrastructure
Inference optimization and quantization
Generative modeling and multimodal research

Salary and Benefits

Competitive annual salary ranging from $160,000 to $280,000 USD
Healthcare, dental, and vision coverage
Meaningful equity in a fast-growing enterprise
Access to necessary tools for success
Office location in Levi's Plaza, San Francisco, featuring rooftop views

About the Company

Bland empowers enterprises to build AI phone agents at scale through a voice stack that makes customer interactions feel natural, reliable, and human. Based in San Francisco, the fast-growing team has raised $100 million from top investors including Emergence Capital, Scale Venture Partners, Y Combinator, and founders from Twilio, Affirm, and ElevenLabs.

How to Apply

Interested candidates should visit the official Bland careers page to submit an application and join the team.

Questions candidates ask

What is the salary range for the Machine Learning Researcher, Audio role?

The annual salary ranges from $160,000 to $280,000 USD.

Where is the position located?

The role is located in San Francisco, CA at the Levi's Plaza office.

What core technologies will I work on?

You will work on speech-to-text systems, large language models, neural audio codecs, and text-to-speech technologies.

What benefits are provided with this position?

Benefits include healthcare, dental, vision coverage, meaningful equity, necessary tools, and an office with rooftop views in San Francisco.

How can I apply for this job?

You can apply by visiting the official Bland careers page.

Ready to apply?

The application is on the official Bland AI careers page.

Apply on company site