Research Scientist - Video Diffusion

Nuance Labs is an early-stage deep tech startup. We’re building the first real-time human foundation model — unifying text, speech, and vision — to make AI socially and emotionally intelligent. Imagine an AI that can understand a quirked eyebrow, a shift in tone, or a hesitant pause, and respond in a way that feels truly human. Key Facts $10M seed round backed by Accel, South Park Commons, Lightspeed, and top angels including Synthesia’s former CPO. A world-class team of PhDs from MIT, UW, and Oxford with decades of industry experience at Apple and Meta, advancing real-time avatars from cutting-edge research to products used by millions. In-person collaboration, 5 days a week at Seattle HQ This is for you, if Have a PhD (or equivalent experience) in training speech synthesis models (text-to-speech, speech-to-speech, etc.), training audio generation models, or related fields, with a track record of pushing the research frontier Know deep learning inside out and can run the whole ML pipeline, from data wrangling and rapid prototyping to large-scale training, benchmarking, and evaluation Love blank-page problems, chart your own course, and make progress without waiting for someone to hand you a task list Move quickly from research breakthroughs to practical, real-world applications Write code that’s clean enough your future self will thank you for Play well with other brilliant minds from different domains What you’ll be building The first human foundation model that operates across text, speech, facial expression, and body language in real time. This unified model: Understands fine-grained human signals — from a quirked eyebrow to a subtle change in voice — and infers meaning in context Generates lifelike, responsive avatars whose expressions, gestures, and tone evolve frame-by-frame to deliver genuine responses The landscape is ripe for innovation.While voice AI systems have made great strides in capturing prosody, and avatar platforms can generate compelling visuals, existing solutions remain fragmented. Real-time, multimodal interaction — where voice, facial expression, and contextual perception converge — is still an unsolved problem. This role offers the rare opportunity to shape foundational technology in a space where the boundaries are still being defined. Why this team We’re research scientists who’ve spent years advancing AI avatar and audio-visual generation — publishing at top conferences and shipping ultra-low-latency ML products to millions. We combine frontier research with the ruthless engineering needed for consumer-grade, real-time systems. To apply, email us with your CV and a short note on why your background is a great fit for this role. Send application or questions to View email address on click.appcast.io VALUES Radical transparency : We communicate openly so everyone can make informed decisions. Relentless speed : We bias towards action, iterate fast, and learn quickly. Doing right by people : Integrity and respect are not negotiable. Being together fuels our energy and accelerates our problem-solving. Join us in bridging the emotional gap of artificial intelligence #J-18808-Ljbffr Nuance Labs