Audio Production Expert (Contract)

ABOUT CARTESIA Our mission is to architect AI that learns from and interacts with the world like humans do. We're pioneering the model architectures that will make this possible. Our founding team met as PhDs at the Stanford AI Lab, where we invented State Space Models or SSMs, a new primitive for training efficient, large-scale foundation models. Our team combines deep expertise in model innovation and systems engineering paired with a design-minded product engineering team to build and ship cutting edge models and experiences. We're funded by leading investors at Index Ventures and Lightspeed Venture Partners, along with Factory, Conviction, A Star, General Catalyst, SV Angel, Databricks and others. We're fortunate to have the support of many amazing advisors, and 90+ angels across many industries, including the world's foremost experts in AI. About the role Most voices in Cartesia’s library starts as a recording. We’re looking for someone who has spent years making those recordings great from a technical standpoint, and have the ears to understand what good sounds like. You’ll own voice production production from spec definition, to recoding pre-processing, to final delivery. You’ll also take customer requests from our Voices team and quickly generate the voices to the required fidelity, timeline, and requirements. This is an internal role and not client facing. Voices team brings the requirements to you. You’ll work day to day with our Voice Production Lead, who owns the creative and customer side, while you own the technical side and set the bar for what good audio means at Cartesia. What you’ll do - Set casting requirements and review recordings. Define what we need from voice actors, and be the first to evaluate raw recordings as they come in. - Produce voices from recordings. Use your audio engineering and voice knowledge to turn raw recordings into high-quality voices. - Turn customer requests into voices. Take a brief like “warm, trustworthy, a little Southern, for a healthcare line” and deliver a voice that fits it. - Build our audio and voice IP. Develop the specs, workflows, and know-how that make great voices repeatable at Cartesia. - Support Research and Data. Help with audio for TTS and ASR needs Your first 30 days - Day 1: You have end-to-end understanding of our voice pipeline, as well as heuristics for creating good voices - Day 5: You’ve BAU in shipping voices for the team. Given a raw dataset, you produce voices, within a pre-defined SLA - Day 30: You ship systems to scale the efforts, and develop in-house IP on creating ideal recordings. What we’re looking for - Deep command of audio fundamentals and the technical details: recording, editing, processing, mastering, and delivery specs. - Strong grasp of voice fundamentals. You can describe a voice in precise, nuanced terms (pitch, timbre, pace, intonation, room sound) to any stakeholder, technical or not. - You use tools like Claude Code to automate the repetitive work and get things done fast. - A great communicator: clear, direct, and easy to work with. Nice to have - Experience with text-to-speech, speech recognition, voice cloning, or speech datasets. - Directing in multiple languages or accents. - Basic scripting (Python, ffmpeg, SoX) for batch work. How we hire 1. 30-minute call with our recruiting team. 2. Take-home (2–3 hours): build a set of voices from raw, multi-speaker call recordings using Cartesia’s Instant Voice Cloning, and write up your processing and choices. 3. Live listening review (45–60 minutes): we play your voices together and talk through what you heard, what you did, and what you’d change. This is a 1099 contract opportunity and will not be eligible for the benefits below. Audio Production Experts work on an ongoing basis, renewable by mutual agreement. You will control your own methods for completing assigned work, supply your own equipment, and are responsible for your own taxes. You must be authorized to work in your country of residence. Note: Cartesia participates in E-Verify and will provide the federal government with Form I-9 information to confirm employment eligibility after hire. MORE DETAILS 🏢 In-office policy: We’re an in-person team based out of offices in 🇺🇸 San Francisco, 🇬🇧 London and 🇮🇳 Bangalore. We love being in the office, hanging out together, and learning from each other every day. 🌎 Visa sponsorship: We provide visa sponsorship support and assess each circumstance on a case-by-case basis. However, visa sponsorship is dependent on many factors, including the role you are applying for, and the location you are going to be based, and so we can't always guarantee success. Your Recruiter will work with you to understand your visa sponsorship needs from the first call. 🚢 We ship fast. All of our work is novel and cutting edge, and execution speed is paramount. We have a high bar, and we don’t sacrifice quality or design along the way. 🤝 We support each other. We have an open & inclusive culture that’s focused on giving everyone the resources they need to succeed. OUR BENEFITS (US EMPLOYEES ONLY) 💰 Compensation Competitive base salary alongside attractive equity package. 🩺 Health Insurance Fully covered medical insurance along with dental and vision for you and your family. 🧑‍🧑‍🧒‍🧒 Parental Leave 9 weeks paternity & 12 weeks maternity leave 🏦 401(k) 🚆 Commuter Allowance A monthly stipend to help you get to and from the office. 🏖️ Flexible PTO Take as much time as you need to recharge your batteries. 🍲 Meals & Snacks Lunch, dinner and plenty of snacks, provided daily. 🦖 Your own personal Yoshi OUR COMMITMENT TO EQUAL OPPORTUNITY Cartesia is an equal opportunity employer. We consider qualified applicants without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, genetic information, or any other legally protected status.