Lead AI/ML Engineer

Job Description

Job Description

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. We work in tight, skilled teams, prioritize clarity over complexity, and continuously evolve through curiosity, data, and craftsmanship. We’re seeking technologists and problem solvers who thrive in fast-paced environments, love collaborating with great talent, and approach every day like it’s Day 1.

 

We're a globally diverse team with hubs in New York City, Mountain View, Latin America, and India—embracing both hybrid and remote work to bring the best minds together, wherever they are. If you're driven by continuous learning, rapid pivots, and the challenges of building in a high-growth startup, we’d love to talk. This is more than a job—it’s a journey.

 

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

Benefits

• Competitive compensation with stock options
• Comprehensive medical, vision, and dental insurance
• 401k matching
• Fitness and wellness stipend
• Mobile phone reimbursement
• Mental well-being benefits
• Professional learning and development stipend
• Parental leave, including adoptive and foster parents
• 3 weeks paid time off (increases with tenure) and unlimited sick leave

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

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 View email address on ziprecruiter.com to obtain assistance. #LI-SL1 #LI-Hybrid

We may use artificial intelligence (AI) tools to support parts of the hiring process, such as reviewing applications, analyzing resumes, or assessing responses and identifying potential inconsistencies or verification signals in application materials based on available information. 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.