Deputy Director, AI R&D (Language AI)

About the role

HTX, Singapore's Science and Technology agency under the Ministry of Home Affairs, develops data, AI and technology solutions for public safety. This Deputy Director, AI R&D (Language AI) role leads a multidisciplinary team of AI scientists, machine learning engineers and researchers to advance Voice AI, Conversational AI and Agentic AI, turning applied AI research into operational products for the Home Team.

Key responsibilities

• Lead and grow a team of AI scientists, ML engineers and researchers to advance Voice AI capabilities.
• Drive the design, development and deployment of Voice AI, Conversational AI and Agentic AI solutions, including voice agents, speech technologies and spoken language models.
• Partner with Home Team Departments, product teams and stakeholders to identify use cases, shape AI strategy and deliver solutions.
• Provide technical and product leadership across the AI lifecycle, from research and prototyping to production deployment, monitoring and continuous improvement.
• Ensure AI solutions are scalable, secure and reliable, and balance innovation with governance standards and organisational roadmaps.
• Establish best practices in AI engineering, model evaluation, Responsible AI, MLOps and AI product delivery.
• Coach, mentor and develop team talent while delivering strategic outcomes on time.

Required profile

• Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, AI, Machine Learning, Data Science, Linguistics, Speech Processing or a related quantitative discipline.
• Minimum 8-12 years of experience in software engineering, AI/ML, data science or product engineering, with at least 5 years in a leadership role managing multidisciplinary engineering teams.
• Proven track record of building and deploying AI products into production, owning architecture, delivery, operations and continuous improvement.
• Experience leading cross-functional teams of AI researchers, data scientists, ML engineers, software engineers, product managers and UX specialists.
• All new hires are appointed on a two-year contract initially, with consideration for permanent tenure based on performance.

Required skills

• Hands-on experience in Voice AI, Speech AI, Conversational AI, LLMs, Spoken Language Models and related Language AI domains.
• Experience with real-time voice agents, speech analytics platforms, contact centre AI solutions, digital assistants, audio intelligence systems or multimodal AI products.
• Strong expertise in ASR, TTS, Voice Agents, Conversational AI, Spoken Language Models and audio analytics.
• Deep understanding of AI/ML engineering, MLOps and cloud platforms, including model deployment, monitoring, lifecycle management, API integration and large-scale production environments.
• Ability to define product vision, roadmap and success metrics, and prioritise high-impact AI use cases.