Lead AI/ML Engineer

At ASAPP, our mission is simple: deliver the best AI-powered customer experience—faster than anyone else. To achieve that, we’re guided by principles that shape how we think, build, and execute. We value customer obsession, purposeful speed, ownership, and a relentless focus on outcomes. ASAPP’s AI Engineering team is seeking an enterprising, talented and curious machine learning engineer.

We are seeking a highly experienced Lead AI/ML Engineer to join our Core GenerativeAgent team. You will play a pivotal role in designing, building, and deploying cutting-edge AI systems that power mission-critical enterprise applications. This role is ideal for an individual who thrives in ambiguity, is deeply technical, and has a strong product sense paired with deep expertise in foundational models and enterprise AI systems.

You will lead the design and delivery of end-to-end voice AI solutions, combining large language models with speech technologies such as speech-to-text, text-to-speech, and real-time streaming audio pipelines. This role requires a hands-on technical leader who can architect low-latency, highly reliable conversational voice systems and guide a team through ambiguity toward production excellence.

We are looking for someone who understands the unique constraints of voice experiences, latency, turn-taking, interruption handling, streaming inference, and audio quality, and can translate these into scalable, enterprise-grade systems.

This is a hybrid role with weekly in-person responsibilities. We have offices in New York City and Mountain View, CA

What you'll do

* Build real-time conversational AI systems, including voice interfaces powered by speech-to-text, text-to-speech, and streaming inference pipelines

* Design and optimize low-latency inference workflows for multimodal applications involving text, speech, and real-time interactions

* Integrate and apply foundation models from major providers (OpenAI, AWS Bedrock, Anthropic, etc.) for prototyping and production use cases

* Adapt, evaluate, and optimize LLMs for domain-specific enterprise applications

* Build and maintain infrastructure for experimentation, deployment, and monitoring of AI models in production

* Improve model performance and inference workflows with attention to latency, cost, and reliability

* Provide technical leadership within the team, mentoring engineers and promoting best practices in ML engineering

* Partner with product and cross-functional stakeholders to translate requirements into scalable ML solutions

* Contribute to the evolution of internal standards for experimentation, evaluation, and deployment

What you'll need

* 6+ years of experience in Machine Learning or AI systems, with hands-on experience in LLMs, speech, or conversational AI systems

* Experience building on integrating speech-to-text and text-to-speech systems

* Strong experience integrating voice models into production applications

* Proficiency on Python and ML frameworks like PyTorch or TensorFlow

* Proven experience leading complex, cross-functional AI initiatives

* Deep understanding of latency-sensitive system design and distributed architectures

* Strong proficiency in Python and ML frameworks such as PyTorch or TensorFlow

* Understanding of RAG pipelines, prompt engineering, and vector search

* Experience deploying and scaling AI systems using AWS (required), Docker, Kubernetes, and CI/CD practices

* Strong communication skills with the ability to align engineering, product, and executive stakeholders

* Comfortable operating in fast-paced environments and driving clarity in ambiguous problem spaces

What we'd like to see

* Experience with speech model fine-tuning and acoustic/language model optimization

* Experience with production applications of S2S models

* Hands-on experience with real-time or streaming audio systems (WebRTC, gRPC streaming, or similar architectures)

* Experience optimizing TTS prosody, pronunciation control, and voice customization

* Background in MLOps, experimentation platforms, or evaluation frameworks for speech and conversational systems

* Contributions to open-source AI or speech tooling

* Graduate degree (MS or PhD) in Computer Science, Machine Learning, Speech Processing, or related field

$170,000 - $190,000 a year

Compensation package also includes a performance bonus on top of the listed salary range

Separately, we also offer a compelling equity grant comprised of stock options

Benefits Include

Competitive compensation with stock options

Comprehensive medical, vision, and dental insurance

401k matching

Fitness and wellness stipend

Mental well-being benefits

Professional learning and development stipend

Parental leave, including adoptive and foster parents

3 weeks paid time off (increases with tenure) along with sick leave, bereavement and jury duty

ASAPP is committed to creating a diverse environment and is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, disability, age, or veteran status. If you have a disability and need assistance with our employment application process, please email us at [email protected] to obtain assistance.

We may use artificial intelligence (AI) tools to support parts of the hiring process, such as reviewing applications, analyzing resumes, or assessing responses. These tools assist our recruitment team but do not replace human judgment. Final hiring decisions are ultimately made by humans. If you would like more information about how your data is processed, please contact us.