Language Specialist

ABOUT LINGUASPANLinguaSpan is an AI-powered language technology company delivering transcription, translation and localisation solutions for African languages and global markets. We support businesses, institutions and digital platforms that require fast, accurate and culturally relevant language services. As we expand our products and commercial reach, we remain committed to building reliable language solutions that reflect the linguistic and cultural diversity of the communities we serve.ROLE OVERVIEWWe are seeking a Language Specialist to lead the quality, accuracy, and integrity of the language data powering LinguaSpan’s products.This is a hands-on role at the intersection of linguistics and applied natural language processing. The successful candidate will work with speech and text data, coordinate distributed language contributors, develop annotation and quality-assurance processes, and support the creation of reliable datasets, particularly for low-resource languages.The Language Specialist will collaborate closely with Product, Engineering, and Delivery teams to ensure that language data pipelines, tools, and quality standards meet LinguaSpan’s product and operational requirements.KEY RESPONSIBILITIESLanguage Data and Quality AssuranceGuide the collection, documentation, annotation, transcription, translation and quality assurance of language datasets, particularly for low-resource languages.Develop annotation guidelines, language standards, glossaries and quality-assurance checklists.Review language data for grammatical accuracy, consistency, cultural relevance, orthographic correctness and appropriate treatment of dialect variations.Establish and monitor quality indicators, including error rates, annotation consistency and inter-annotator agreement.Support language documentation and fieldwork activities where required.Ensure language data is collected, processed and stored in accordance with applicable confidentiality, consent and data-protection requirements.Speech and Text Data PipelinesWork with speech and text data pipelines, including transcription and forced-alignment tools such as Praat and Montreal Forced Aligner.Develop and apply evaluation frameworks for automatic speech recognition and text-to-speech systems.Conduct error-pattern and root-cause analyses to improve dataset and model quality.Explore appropriate synthetic-data techniques to improve coverage for low-resource languages.Identify gaps in language datasets and recommend practical strategies for improving their quality and representativeness.Contributor and Project ManagementRecruit, onboard, train, and coordinate annotators, transcribers, translators, and other language contributors.Assign tasks, monitor delivery timelines and review contributor output against established quality standards.Provide clear feedback and corrective guidance to contributors.Maintain accurate records of project progress, data quality, contributor performance and outstanding issues.Manage multiple language workstreams and ensure deliverables are completed within agreed timelines.Technical Support and AutomationUse Python or similar tools for data processing, quality-assurance scripting, and workflow automation.Develop processes that reduce manual effort and improve the efficiency and reliability of language-data pipelines.Test and recommend language tools, platforms and workflows that support LinguaSpan’s operational requirements.Build and improve language-data processes in response to evolving product and project needs.Communication and CollaborationCommunicate language-data findings, quality issues and process recommendations clearly to technical and non-technical stakeholders.Collaborate with Product, Engineering and Delivery teams to align language-data activities with product and client requirements.Prepare weekly reports on pipeline progress, data quality, contributor performance, risks and outstanding deliverables.Participate in project meetings and provide specialist linguistic guidance when required.ESSENTIAL REQUIREMENTSBachelor’s degree in Linguistics, Computational Linguistics, Language Technology or a related discipline.Strong spoken and written proficiency in Yoruba, including knowledge of standard Yoruba orthography, tone marking and dialect variations.Demonstrated experience in transcription, translation, annotation, language documentation or applied NLP.Experience working with speech or text datasets.Ability to manage distributed contributors and review large volumes of real-world language data.Strong attention to linguistic detail, consistency and cultural accuracy.Excellent written and verbal communication skills.Strong organisational and project-management capabilities.Ability to work effectively in a startup or fast-moving environment.DESIRABLE QUALIFICATIONS Working proficiency in French, in addition to Yoruba and English.Proficiency in one or more additional African languages.Experience with Praat, Montreal Forced Aligner, or similar speech-processing tools.Working knowledge of Python or a similar programming language for data processing and automation.Experience developing or applying ASR and TTS evaluation frameworks.Familiarity with synthetic-data generation for low-resource languages.Experience developing annotation guidelines, glossaries, or language-quality frameworks.Previous experience building language-data or quality-assurance processes from the ground up.HOW TO APPLYInterested and qualified candidates should send their CV to admin@linguaspanapp.com, using “Language Specialist” as the subject of the email.