Appen is looking for Linguist Leads and Annotators available to work intermittently on site at one of our client’s office in London for a variety of languages, including Italian.  More details and requirements for the positions can be found in the relevant job descriptions included below. An extra requirement is that the successful candidate should be resident (o disposto a trasferirsi — MS) in the UK or the Netherlands, as these are the two European countries where Appen has an office and where it can hire workers for this kind of projects. Please get in touch with Dr Luca Rognoni (lrognoni@appen.com) for further information.

Linguist Lead (English [AU, IN, NZ, UK], Spanish [ES], French [FR], Hindi, Italian, German) 

Overview

Appen collects and labels data used to build and continuously improve the world’s most innovative artificial intelligence systems. With expertise in more than 180 languages, a global crowd of over 1 million skilled contractors, and the industry’s most advanced annotation platform, Appen works with leading companies and governments worldwide.

We’re looking for experienced linguists to lead teams of annotators and help process language data for conversational understanding technologies.

You are the right candidate if you know that language data is the underpinning of all current language technologies. You love practical language analysis as well as theoretical. You’re quick to learn and implement new label sets. You are a native-level speaker of the required language.

Start date: January 2020

Duration: 40 hrs weekly through the calendar year

Benefits: available based on role location

Successful candidates must be able to work full-time at client sites in one of the following areas: Greater London area. Onsite periods will last three to six weeks per client needs; otherwise, work can be performed remotely.

Key Responsibilities:

• Provide language-specific expertise to client researchers, engineers, and linguists
• Execute project plans in consultation with the Project Manager
• Evaluate, update, and distribute annotation guidelines as dictated by data quality goals
• Field annotator questions
• Evaluate the proficiency of annotators and address deficiencies
• Monitor data acquisition and curation
• Develop gold data in consultation with the client
• Handle personnel issues

Qualifications:

• Advanced degree in Linguistics, Speech Science, or related field
• Experience annotating data with linguistic, syntactic, semantic, pragmatic, phonetic, phonological, and prosodic information
• Native-level proficiency in the target language
• Collaborative and solution-oriented attitude
• Ability to adapt to changing requirements, priorities, and revisions
• Strong attention to detail
• Clear communication style
• Strong professional English skills

Preferred Qualifications:

• Industry experience
• Project management experience
• Fluency in three or more natural languages
• Experience with basic programming techniques and familiarity with languages such as Java, Python, PHP, Perl, and C#

We are an equal opportunity employer and value diversity at our company. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status.

Linguist Annotator (English [AU, IN, NZ, UK], Spanish [ES], French [FR], Hindi, Italian, German) 

Overview

Appen is looking for linguists to annotate and/or transcribe data for our client’s Natural Language Processing systems. We have an urgent need for annotators who can work onsite at the client’s facilities, up to 5 annotators per language. The project is expected to continue through the 2020 calendar year.

We are currently hiring native speakers of English, Spanish, and French. We expect to hire annotators who are native speakers of Hindi, Italian, and German later in 2020, but applications for all roles are welcome now.

You are the right candidate if you love practical language analysis as well as theoretical, you’re quick to learn new label sets, and you’re willing and able to spend several hours per day focusing on your task with consistent results. You must also be a native-level speaker of one of the required languages.

Work location: at client sites in Greater London area

Hours: 40 weekly

Project duration: 2020 calendar year

Benefits: available based on role location

Duties:

• Annotate text data with linguistic information or phonetically transcribe audio data (depending on assignment)
• Implement annotation/transcription conventions and guidelines with accuracy and consistency
• Communicate with other linguists about effective annotation/transcription strategies
• Contribute to the improvement of tools and processes by raising issues and suggesting improvements
• Understand and adapt to changing requirements

Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree in Linguistics, Computational Linguistics, Language Technologies, or related field
• Interest in practical as well as theoretical linguistics, especially phonetics, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics
• Facility with computers and software applications
• Ability to adapt to changing requirements, priorities, and revisions
• Cooperative, solution-oriented attitude
• Eagerness to learn new skills and work quickly
• Enthusiasm for detail work
• Ability to focus for significant portions of the work day
• Strong problem-solving and analytical skills
• Ability to speak, read, and write English in a professional setting
• Native speaker of one of the required languages

Preferred Qualifications:

• Advanced degree and/or industry experience
• Annotation experience
• Experience with ontologies and label sets or phonetic transcription systems (depending on assignment)
• Experience working with remote colleagues

We are an equal opportunity employer and value diversity at our company. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status.