Head of Research Voice

Meet DeepL DeepL is a global communications platform powered by Language AI. Since 2017, we’ve been on a mission to break down language barriers. Our human‑sounding translations and intelligent writing suggestions are designed with enterprise security in mind. Today, they enable over 100,000 businesses to transform communications, reach new markets, and improve productivity, and empower millions of individuals worldwide to make sense of the world and express their ideas. Head of Research, DeepL Voice (Senior Engineering Manager for Research & Applied ML) About the Role We are looking for a senior leader to head the Research organisation for DeepL Voice. This role leads all research efforts across speech, translation, and voice‑to‑voice systems while managing hybrid teams of researchers, applied scientists, ML engineers, and software engineers. You’ll drive the innovation pipeline from hypothesis and prototyping to production‑ready models working closely with engineering and product partners to bring state‑of‑the‑art voice translation technology into real‑world use. This role sits squarely within Research, but requires strong engineering leadership and the ability to manage blended teams and potentially engineering managers. What you’ll do Build and lead the Voice Research organisation, managing researchers, applied ML engineers, and software engineers in a hybrid setup. Own the research strategy across ASR, MT, TTS, voice‑to‑voice translation, and multimodal modeling. Guide teams through the full lifecycle: early experiments, prototyping, scaling, integration into production pipelines. Set technical direction for model architectures, evaluation, latency optimisation, and overall voice pipeline quality. Own the data strategy for research: collection, labeling, curation, augmentation, scraping, cleaning, and dataset governance. Drive training and optimisation workflows, including supervised learning, self‑supervision, RL/RLAIF/RLHF, alignment, distillation, compression, and efficient inference. Ensure strong collaboration with product engineering, so models are reproducible, deployable, and tuned for real‑world usage. Recruit, mentor, and retain top research and engineering talent, building a healthy, high‑performing culture. Introduce pragmatic processes that enable speed, clarity, and accountability without slowing down innovation. What we’re looking for Experienced research leader with a history of managing hybrid teams (researchers + engineers) and/or engineering managers. Deep expertise in speech, translation, or multimodal ML – ideally with hands‑on exposure to ASR/MT/TTS or real‑time ML systems. Strong engineering leadership: comfortable leading software engineers, applied ML engineers, and complex research‑engineering interfaces. Proven record of shipping research outcomes into production, not just driving academic research. Experience designing scalable data pipelines (labeling, scraping, cleaning, augmentation, quality assurance). Strong hiring pedigree: ability to attract and grow world‑class research and ML engineering talent. Excellent technical judgement and the ability to balance long‑term research ambitions with practical product requirements. Structured communicator, able to guide multi‑disciplinary teams with clarity and steady direction. What we offer Diverse and internationally distributed team: joining our team means becoming part of a large, global community with people of more than 90 nationalities. Open communication and regular feedback: we value clear, honest communication and lead with empathy and a growth mindset. Hybrid work, flexible hours: we offer a hybrid schedule with team members coming into the office three times a week, flexible working hours and trust in productivity. Monthly full‑day hacking sessions: every month we have Hack Fridays where you can spend your time diving into a project you’re passionate about and get the opportunity to work with other teams. 30 days of annual leave: with 30 days off (excluding public holidays) and access to mental health resources. Competitive benefits: tailored to reflect the diversity of our team and aligned with your unique location. If this role and our mission resonate with you, but you’re hesitant because you don’t check all the boxes, don’t let that hold you back. At DeepL, it’s all about the value you bring and the growth we can foster together. Go ahead, apply – let’s discover your potential together. We can’t wait to meet you We are an equal opportunity employer You are welcome at DeepL for who you are. We appreciate authenticity here. Our product is for everyone, and so is our workplace. The more voices we have represented and amplified in our business, the more we will all succeed, contribute, and think forward It’s in our diversity that we will find the power to break down language barriers in the world. #J-18808-Ljbffr