Research Engineer - Voice Intelligence

San Francisco, CAOnsiteFull Time$200,000–$300,000 /yrPosted 18 days ago

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Required skills

voice intelligence
ambient intelligence
voice stack
diarization
VAD
noise robustness
transcription quality
speaker ID
post-processing
memory

Nice to have

streaming audio pipelines
real-time systems
LLM post-processing
structured extraction
tooling for labeling
dataset curation

Role summary

Pocket is seeking a Research Engineer to advance its ambient intelligence platform, focusing on voice technology. This role involves inventing and shipping improvements to the voice stack (diarization, VAD, transcription, speaker ID) and building new voice-powered product features like summaries and action extraction. The engineer will manage research loops, define metrics, iterate on models, and productionize solutions, while also improving real-time performance and reliability. Success is measured by significant improvements in voice quality, intelligence, and reliable feature delivery at scale. The ideal candidate has 6-10+ years of experience shipping production systems, strong applied ML/research engineering skills, and an understanding of audio fundamentals.

About the role

Pocket is building a category-defining platform for ambient intelligence. Voice is the highest-signal interface we have — and we’re looking for a research-minded engineer to push what’s possible with voice end-to-end: capture → understanding → real-time experiences → evaluation.
What you'll own
Invent and ship improvements to our voice stack: diarization, VAD, noise robustness, transcription quality, speaker ID, and post-processing.
Build new voice-powered product capabilities: better memory, better meeting/voice summaries, better action extraction, better personalization.
Run tight research loops: define metrics, build eval sets, iterate on models/algorithms, and productionize what works.
Improve real-time performance and reliability: streaming pipelines, latency budgets, fallbacks, and graceful degradation.
Partner closely with product + design to translate voice capabilities into features people feel immediately.
What success looks like
Step-function improvements in voice quality and perceived intelligence (measured and felt).
A clear evaluation harness (offline + online) that prevents regressions and accelerates iteration.
Voice features that ship reliably at scale with predictable latency.
What we're looking for
Have 6–10+ years of experience shipping production systems with strong technical ownership.
Are strong in applied ML/research engineering and can turn prototypes into robust product.
Understand audio/voice fundamentals (signal processing basics helpful) and modern model/eval workflows.
Care deeply about performance and reliability.
Nice-to-haves
Experience with streaming audio pipelines and real-time systems.
Experience with LLM post-processing, structured extraction, and evaluation.
Experience building tooling for labeling, dataset curation, and QA.

What we offer

Work directly with us and learn fast
Direct impact on how the company operates day to day
High-trust, high-responsibility environment
Competitive compensation

About Pocket

Pocket is a Y Combinator W26 company building a premium hardware plus software product in the AI voice recorder space. We are obsessed with quality and speed. We are scaling very fast in the US and now European markets and building a device experience that can become the category leader.

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