Strategic Project Lead - Speech & Audio AI (London)

<div> <h3><span data-contrast="auto">About the Role</span></h3> <p><span data-contrast="auto">The Strategic Project Lead – Speech &amp; Audio will sit in Appen's Operations organization and support the development of frontier AI through high-quality data programs for leading AI companies. We’re looking for someone with experience in speech, audio, or language data to own complex projects from planning through delivery.</span><span data-ccp-props="{}">&nbsp;</span></p> </div> <div> <p><span data-contrast="auto">You’ll combine project management, domain expertise, and quality ownership to help clients build and improve speech recognition systems, voice agents, and other AI applications. You’ll work closely with clients and internal teams to solve problems, refine workflows, and keep pace with a rapidly evolving AI landscape.</span><span data-ccp-props="{}">&nbsp;</span></p> </div><br><strong>Your Impact</strong><br><div> <li><span data-contrast="auto">Own end-to-end delivery across project scope, timelines, budgets, staffing, and risks.</span></li> <li><span data-contrast="auto">Manage client communication, status updates, workshops, and escalations.</span></li> <li><span data-contrast="auto">Translate client requirements into annotation guidelines, workflows, tooling, and quality standards.</span></li> <li><span data-contrast="auto">Define and monitor quality metrics, including transcription accuracy, word error rate (WER), diarization, and linguistic consistency.</span></li> <li><span data-contrast="auto">Troubleshoot quality issues and resolve ambiguous requirements with clients.</span></li> <li><span data-contrast="auto">Provide domain expertise across speech and audio workflows, advising on feasibility, evaluation methods, and tooling.</span></li> <li><span data-contrast="auto">Build reusable guidelines, SOPs, and QA frameworks while mentoring Operations Specialists.</span></li> <li><span data-contrast="auto">Support new project scoping, pilots, and capability development as speech and voice AI evolves.</span><span data-ccp-props="{}">&nbsp;</span></li> </div><br><strong>What You Bring</strong><br><div> <div> <div> <li><span data-contrast="auto">1–2+ years of experience in AI data operations, project coordination, or delivery, ideally in a GenAI or frontier AI environment.</span></li> <li><span data-contrast="auto">Hands-on familiarity with at least one speech, audio, language, or conversational AI workflow.</span></li> <li><span data-contrast="auto">Experience coordinating projects or workstreams, managing stakeholders, and communicating with clients.</span></li> <li><span data-contrast="auto">Understanding of data quality, annotation workflows, and quality assurance methods.</span></li> <li><span data-contrast="auto">Ability to turn client requirements into clear guidelines, workflows, and quality standards.</span></li> <li><span data-contrast="auto">Strong problem-solving skills and the ability to manage multiple priorities in a fast-moving environment.</span></li> <li><span data-contrast="auto">Interest in current AI developments and how speech, audio, and voice-agent technologies are evolving.</span><span data-ccp-props="{}">