LINGUIST List 11.177

Fri Jan 28 2000

Jobs: Comp Ling/Speech Scientist, Computer Linguist

Editor for this issue: Naomi Ogasawara <naomilinguistlist.org>

Directory

1. Deb Grier, Comp Ling/Speech Scientist at Conversa, Washington
2. Todd Cusolle, Computer Linguist: Senior at InvestorTrack.com, BC Canada

Conversa - Conversationalizing the Internet. Delivering solutions for
interacting with computers, the Internet and communication devices by voice.
Conversa brings the natural and universal interface of voice to PCs, PDAs,
cellular phones and other electronic devices. By adding the human element
to computing - and de-emphasizing typing, mouse clicking and touchtone
dialing - we're making it easier for people to adopt conversational
computing into their everyday lives.

Our goal is to become the global standard for end-to-end solutions for
internet/web based Conversational Computing(R). 

Visit our website at www.conversa.com! We're a pre-IPO start up in
Redmond, Washington. We have an entrepreneurial, casual work environment
where successes both great and small are celebrated, excellent benefits
(including stock options), lots of parties, concierge service, fully paid
health insurance for the entire family and we encourage innovation through
outstanding reward programs. If this is your kind of company, we should
talk.

Please submit your resumes to:
	speechcareersconversa.com!

Speech Scientist
The successful candidate will help improve and create core technical
resources and algorithms in the areas of speech recognition and
text-to-speech (TTS). The candidate will help to develop and apply
objective techniques to measure technology improvements under conditions
that reflect Conversa's products and markets. 
Principal Duties and Responsibilities:
*	Work with existing text-to-speech or speech recognition algorithms
 to extend and improve them
*	Develop new algorithms for text-to-speech or speech recognition
*	Extend algorithms and supporting resources for new languages
*	Consult with developers on optimal application of the technology
*	Consult with marketing to access potential new applications
*	Perform any other duties which may be assigned or necessary
Knowledge, Skills and Abilities:
*	DSP, Statistics, Acoustic Phonetics, Search, algorithm design
*	Knowledge of signal analysis tools
*	C/C++, DSP programming, Windows, Unix
*	Knowledge of multiple languages beneficial
Education, Certification, Training and/or Minimum Qualifications:
*	Ph.D. or equivalent in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, or
related field
*	At least 2 years experience with speech technology
*	Previous experience with speech applications a strong plus
Additional Information: 
*	Able to work with limited supervision
*	Able to communicate effectively with scientists, developers, and
marketers
*	Adaptable and Creative
*	Self-motivated
*	Willing to relocate to Redmond, Washington



Software Engineer-Prosody
The successful candidate will assist in the creation of prosodic models for
multiple languages used by Conversa's proprietary text-to-speech engine. 
Principal Duties and Responsibilities:
*	Create prosodic models for multiple languages to be used by the
text-to-speech system
*	Extend prosody unit as necessary for specific languages
*	Perform and any other duties which may be assigned or necessary.
Knowledge, Skills and Abilities:
*	Strong C programming skills on Windows 98/NT platform
*	Thorough understanding of prosody and phonology
*	Additional knowledge of linguistics or natural language processing a
strong plus
*	Knowledge of multiple languages a plus
Education, Certification, Training and/or Minimum Qualifications:
*	M.S. or equivalent in Computer Science or Linguistics
*	Previous experience with speech applications a strong plus
 Additional Information: 
*	Able to work with limited supervision
*	Strong problem-solving skills
*	Willing to relocate to Redmond, Washington



Software Engineer-Text Normalization
The successful candidate will extend the text normalization component of
Conversa's proprietary text-to-speech and speech recognition system,
including adapting the text normalization unit to process new languages. 
Principal Duties and Responsibilities:
*	Extend the text normalization unit to more flexibly process written
 text
*	Specify text normalization rules for processing new languages
*	Create other text processing components as necessary for specific
 languages
*	Perform any other duties which may be assigned or necessary
 Knowledge, Skills and Abilities:
*	Familiarity with basics of compiler design
*	Knowledge of basics of phonology
*	Strong C programming skills on Windows platforms
*	Knowledge of multiple languages and their writing conventions a
 strong plus
 Education, Certification, Training and/or Minimum Qualifications:
*	B.S., M.S., or equivalent in Computer Science or related field
*	Previous experience with natural language processing a strong plus
*	Previous experience with speech applications a plus
 Additional Information: 
*	Able to work with limited supervision
*	Strong problem-solving skills
*	Willing to relocate to Redmond, Washington


Software Engineer-Time Domain
The successful candidate will create tools to analyze and manage recorded
speech data. The candidate will create automated scripts for extracting
data from large speech corpora and use digital signal processing techniques
to adjust speech data. 
Principal Duties and Responsibilities:
*	Create tools for editing and managing large amounts of recorded
 speech data
*	Perform and any other duties which may be assigned or necessary
 Knowledge, Skills and Abilities:
*	Strong C programming skills on Windows 98/NT platform
*	Strong understanding of DSP and signal analysis tools
*	Knowledge of acoustic phonetics or phonology a strong plus
 Education, Certification, Training and/or Minimum Qualifications:
*	B.S., M.S., or equivalent in Computer Science or related field
*	Previous experience with speech applications a strong plus
*	Ability to measure, publicize and promote improvements within the
 company
 Additional Information: 
*	Able to work with limited supervision
*	Strong problem-solving skills
*	Willing to relocate to Redmond, Washington


Speech Engineer-Lexicon
The successful candidate will edit and enhance the lexical data files used
by Conversa's proprietary speech engine for multiple languages. The
candidate will also be responsible for part-of-speech training for different
languages, and may assist with the training of other language components.
Principal Duties and Responsibilities:
*	Verify and correct data in lexical data files for multiple languages
*	Write scripts for automating dictionary updates
*	Edit part-of-speech corpora to ensure the successful training of the
 part-of-speech tagger
*	Oversee part-of-speech training
*	Perform any other linguistic duties which may be assigned or
 necessary Knowledge, Skills and Abilities:
*	Fluency in at least one major European or East Asian language.
 Fluency in two languages preferred.
*	Thorough knowledge of phonetics, phonology, or morphology.
*	Familiarity with at least one text editor, including use of macros.
*	Willingness to learn script programming. Previous experience with
 script writing a strong plus. 
*	Education, Certification, Training and/or Minimum Qualifications:
*	M.A., Ph.D., or equivalent in Linguistics or a specific language. 
*	Previous experience with computer lexical work a strong plus.
*	Previous experience with speech applications a strong plus.
 Additional Information: 
*	Able to work with limited supervision
*	Able to work on multiple projects simultaneously 
*	Meticulous and detail-oriented
*	Willing to relocate to Redmond, Washington



Speech Engineer-Training
The successful candidate will train Conversa's proprietary text-to-speech
and speech recognition system from recorded speech corpora to accommodate
new languages. Training will include the selection of an appropriate phoneme
set, training of text-to-speech and speech recognition data files, and
training of spelling-to-pronunciation rule set.
Principal Duties and Responsibilities:
*	Establish an appropriate phone set for each new language
*	Design and conduct experiments to improve engine performance 
*	Use in-house tools to train text-to-speech and speech recognition
data files from recorded speech corpora
*	Use in-house tools to train spelling-to-pronunciation data files
*	Perform training of other data files as necessary
*	Perform any other duties which may be assigned or necessary
Knowledge, Skills and Abilities:
*	Thorough knowledge of acoustic phonetics and phonology
*	Knowledge of multiple languages a strong plus
*	Familiarity with running programs in a Windows 98/NT environment
Education, Certification, Training and/or Minimum Qualifications
*	M.A., Ph.D., or equivalent in Acoustic Phonetics, Phonology, or
Morphology
*	Previous experience with speech applications a strong plus
Additional Information 
*	Able to work with limited supervision
*	Strong problem-solving skills
*	Willing to relocate to Redmond, Washington


 Software Engineer-Morphology
The successful candidate will create a morphology engine for use in
Conversa's proprietary text-to-speech and speech recognition engine. The
candidate will also create data files for a variety of languages ranging
from European to East Asian. 
Principal Duties and Responsibilities:
*	Create and test a language-independent morphology engine for
predicting pronunciations and parts-of-speech of inflected words.
*	Train the morphology engine to accommodate multiple languages.
*	Perform any other duties which may be assigned or necessary.
Knowledge, Skills and Abilities:
*	Solid understanding of morphology
*	Strong C programming skills on Windows 98/NT platform
*	Familiarity with basics of linguistics
*	Experience with natural language processing a strong plus
*	Knowledge of multiple languages a plus
Education, Certification, Training and/or Minimum Qualifications:
*	M.S. or equivalent in Computer Science
*	Previous experience with speech applications a strong plus
Additional Information 
*	Able to work with limited supervision
*	Self-motivated
*	Willing to relocate to Redmond, Washington


Natural Language Processing Scientist
The successful candidate will help improve and create core technical
resources and algorithms in Natural Language Processing as needed in the
development of Conversational Computing. The candidate will help create
advances in language modeling, semantic processing, dialog modeling, and
knowledge representation to improve and extend Conversa's products.
Principal Duties and Responsibilities:
*	Work with existing algorithms to extend and improve them
*	Create next generation interfaces for conversation creation
*	Develop new algorithms for semantic processing and dialog modeling
*	Extend algorithms and supporting resources for new languages
*	Consult with developers on optimal application of the technology
*	Consult with marketing to access potential new applications
Knowledge, Skills and Abilities:
*	NLP, Statistics, Acoustic Phonetics, Search, algorithm design
*	Experience with automatic learning and syntactic tagging systems
*	Knowledge of existing NLP tools desired
*	C/C++, DSP programming, Windows, Unix
*	Knowledge of multiple languages beneficial
Education, Certification, Training and/or Minimum Qualifications
*	Ph.D. or equivalent in Computer Science, Linguistics, or related
field
*	At least 2 years experience in Natural Language Processing
*	Previous experience with speech processing and applications a plus
*	Ability to measure, publicize and promote improvements within the
company
Additional Information 
*	Able to work with limited supervision
*	Able to communicate effectively with scientists, developers, and
marketers
*	Adaptable and Creative
*	Self-motivated
*	Willing to relocate to Redmond, Washington

Rank of Job: Senior
Areas Required: Computer Linguist
Other Desired Areas: 
University or Organization: InvestorTrack.com
Department: Natural Language Processing
State or Province: BC
Country: Canada
Final Date of Application: March 15, 2000
Contact: Todd Cusolle hrinvestortrack.com

Address for Applications:
email hrinvestortrack.com
Vancouver
BC V6Z 2K5
Canada

Computational Linguist
We are looking for a computational linguist who ideally has a wide range
of knowledge in the field of natural language processing. Proficiency in
English is assumed. Experience in designing or implementing NLP
components is highly desirable, and familiarity with software
development (C/C++, VB, Java, ASP, SQL Server, NT) would be an asset.
The successful candidate will be expected to assist in developing a NLP
tool that will further our proprietary technology.