Language Engineer

Interested in Alexa? Come work on it. We’re building the speech and language solutions behind Alexa. We’re working hard, having fun, and making history; come join us! Alexa AI Domains (AIDo) is looking for a Language Engineer to join our Language Understanding Experience team in the area of speech and language data processing. We are seeking a candidate with strong analytical skills and language technology experience to help us measure, analyze and solve complex problems. In this role, you are responsible for the design and delivery of Language Understanding using your linguistic, voice user interface (VUI) design, and data analysis skills to understand what a customer meant. You are a key member in new feature development while proactively improving existing experiences. You work closely with other Language Engineers, Product Managers, Scientists and Engineers to deliver magical experiences that customers love.Key job responsibilitiesSpecifically, the Language Engineer will: - Contribute to the design of new features by creating or extending annotation schemas to cover new areas, - Design the natural language processing components of new Alexa experiences and features by authoring, reviewing and debugging grammars and finite state transducers, - Advocate strict adherence to annotation guidelines, - Test and deploy changes to Alexa's language understanding codebase, - Identify and solve production issues that are impacting the Alexa customer experience, - Handle competing requests from a range of data customers, - Collaborate with other linguists, scientists and designers in creating optimal solutions to elevate the customer experience, - Own the customer-facing machine learning and deterministic models for a specific domain of features, and - Use modeling tools to bootstrap and test new functionalities - Bachelor's or higher degree in Linguistics or a relevant field - 2+ years experience in computational linguistics, language data processing, semantics or syntax - Experience with language annotation and other forms of data markup - Experience working with speech and text language data in multiple languages - Experience with ontologies and other semantic meaning representation schemas - Experience in Perl, Python or another scripting language - Strong technical and analytical aptitude - Excellent communication, exceptional level of organization, and attention to detail - Comfortable working in a fast paced, highly collaborative and dynamic work environment - Willingness to support several projects at one time and to accept reprioritization as necessary - Ability to explain complex solutions in easy-to-understand terms - Ability to think creatively and solve problems - Fluency in a major language other than English, such as German, Spanish, and JapaneseAmazon is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate on the basis of race, national origin, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, protected veteran status, disability, age, or other legally protected status. For individuals with disabilities who would like to request an accommodation, please visit Amazon is committed to a diverse and inclusive workplace. Amazon is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate on the basis of race, national origin, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, protected veteran status, disability, age, or other legally protected status.Our inclusive culture empowers Amazonians to deliver the best results for our customers. If you have a disability and need a workplace accommodation or adjustment during the application and hiring process, including support for the interview or onboarding process, please visit for more information. If the country/region you’re applying in isn’t listed, please contact your Recruiting Partner.Our compensation reflects the cost of labor across several US geographic markets. The base pay for this position ranges from $67,700/year in our lowest geographic market up to $151,400/year in our highest geographic market. Pay is based on a number of factors including market location and may vary depending on job-related knowledge, skills, and experience. Amazon is a total compensation company. Dependent on the position offered, equity, sign-on payments, and other forms of compensation may be provided as part of a total compensation package, in addition to a full range of medical, financial, and/or other benefits. For more information, please visit This position will remain posted until filled. Applicants should apply via our internal or external career site.

The Amazon Transcribe Data Team in Amazon Web Services (AWS) is looking for a forward-looking and collaborative Language Engineer II to join us in developing solutions for natural language data collections. This position is an opportunity to apply your expertise in a challenging but supportive environment. The mission of the Amazon Transcribe Data Team is to engineer the datasets critical to the success of GenAI services for Amazon Transcribe. From chatbots to subtitles to search results and beyond, these products support dozens of languages and impact millions of people every day. We are a group of language engineers, linguists, data scientists, data engineers, and program managers, and we partner closely with science, engineering, and product teams. We are customer obsessed and committed to delivering results with the highest quality and integrity.As a Language Engineer, you will start by diving deep into a high profile project to launch a new product offering. You will consult with stakeholders in science, engineering, and product teams to strategize on data collection and annotation. You will analyze, follow, and improve processes for annotating transcribed conversations, assessing data quality and automating where appropriate.You will then expand your scope by using the principles of data-centric AI to understand the role our data plays with regard to model performance specifically, as well as the larger ML pipelines. You will apply state-of-the-art ML and NLP techniques to analyze how well our data represents human language and run experiments to gauge downstream interactions. You will work collaboratively with other language engineers and scientists to design and implement principled strategies for data optimization.Key job responsibilities- Source, validate, and deliver high-quality language artifacts and linguistic data.- Collaborate with stakeholders to design and oversee data collection and development efforts.- Innovate on data collection methodologies, guidelines, quality metrics to support new requests.- Extend existing data collection and annotation efforts to support feature and language expansion.- Automate repetitive workflows and improve existing processes.About the teamAbout AWSDiverse ExperiencesAWS values diverse experiences. Even if you do not meet all of the preferred qualifications and skills listed in the job description, we encourage candidates to apply. If your career is just starting, hasn’t followed a traditional path, or includes alternative experiences, don’t let it stop you from applying. Why AWS?Amazon Web Services (AWS) is the world’s most comprehensive and broadly adopted cloud platform. We pioneered cloud computing and never stopped innovating — that’s why customers from the most successful startups to Global 500 companies trust our robust suite of products and services to power their businesses.Inclusive Team CultureHere at AWS, it’s in our nature to learn and be curious. Our employee-led affinity groups foster a culture of inclusion that empower us to be proud of our differences. Ongoing events and learning experiences, including our Conversations on Race and Ethnicity (CORE) and AmazeCon (gender diversity) conferences, inspire us to never stop embracing our uniqueness.Mentorship & Career GrowthWe’re continuously raising our performance bar as we strive to become Earth’s Best Employer. That’s why you’ll find endless knowledge-sharing, mentorship and other career-advancing resources here to help you develop into a better-rounded professional. Work/Life BalanceWe value work-life harmony. Achieving success at work should never come at the expense of sacrifices at home, which is why we strive for flexibility as part of our working culture. When we feel supported in the workplace and at home, there’s nothing we can’t achieve in the cloud. This team is part of AWS Utility Computing: Utility Computing (UC) AWS Utility Computing (UC) provides product innovations — from foundational services such as Amazon’s Simple Storage Service (S3) and Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2), to consistently released new product innovations that continue to set AWS’s services and features apart in the industry. As a member of the UC organization, you’ll support the development and management of Compute, Database, Storage, Internet of Things (Iot), Platform, and Productivity Apps services in AWS, including support for customers who require specialized security solutions for their cloud services.- PhD in Computational Linguistics, Linguistics with a computational component, or an equivalent field; alternatively, MA with 3+ years of experience- Excellent knowledge of semantics, pragmatics, conversation analysis, and/or discourse analysis- Experience owning and executing language data collection projects, including guidelines, labelset and annotation workflow development- Proficiency in Python and other analytics tools such as R to process and analyze language data- Experience in developing and evaluating data annotation and data quality metrics- Ability to explain complex concepts and solutions in easy-to-understand terms- Experience building ontologies, taxonomies, and other semantic relation frameworks- Practical knowledge of version control systems such as GitHubAmazon is committed to a diverse and inclusive workplace. Amazon is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate on the basis of race, national origin, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, protected veteran status, disability, age, or other legally protected status.Los Angeles County applicants: Job duties for this position include: work safely and cooperatively with other employees, supervisors, and staff; adhere to standards of excellence despite stressful conditions; communicate effectively and respectfully with employees, supervisors, and staff to ensure exceptional customer service; and follow all federal, state, and local laws and Company policies. Criminal history may have a direct, adverse, and negative relationship with some of the material job duties of this position. These include the duties and responsibilities listed above, as well as the abilities to adhere to company policies, exercise sound judgment, effectively manage stress and work safely and respectfully with others, exhibit trustworthiness and professionalism, and safeguard business operations and the Company’s reputation. Pursuant to the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance, we will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records.Our inclusive culture empowers Amazonians to deliver the best results for our customers. If you have a disability and need a workplace accommodation or adjustment during the application and hiring process, including support for the interview or onboarding process, please visit for more information. If the country/region you’re applying in isn’t listed, please contact your Recruiting Partner.Our compensation reflects the cost of labor across several US geographic markets. The base pay for this position ranges from $67,700/year in our lowest geographic market up to $151,400/year in our highest geographic market. Pay is based on a number of factors including market location and may vary depending on job-related knowledge, skills, and experience. Amazon is a total compensation company. Dependent on the position offered, equity, sign-on payments, and other forms of compensation may be provided as part of a total compensation package, in addition to a full range of medical, financial, and/or other benefits. For more information, please visit This position will remain posted until filled. Applicants should apply via our internal or external career site.