Google AI Studio, Speech to Text and Text to Speech Developer

Project Title: Development of a Specialized Text-to-Speech (TTS) Phonetic Dictionary and Lexicon for Singaporean English Company Overview: We are an innovative AI organization expanding our proprietary Voice AI capabilities. Our current system architecture is built on the Google Cloud Ecosystem (including Google AI Studio, Speech-to-Text, and Text-to-Speech Developer tools). We are now looking to hyper-localize our user experience by creating a highly accurate, custom pronunciation dictionary tailored specifically to the Singaporean market. Project Scope & Objective: We require a qualified Subject Matter Expert (SME) to design, build, and validate a comprehensive text-to-speech phonetic lexicon/dictionary for Singaporean English (SgE). This database will map localized vocabulary, loanwords, unique idioms, names, and structural expressions to their precise phonetic transcriptions—enabling our voice agent to sound authentically and naturally Singaporean. The successful contractor will develop a master dictionary including: Segmental Layer: Accurate phoneme mapping handling typical SgE vowel mergers (e.g., fleece/kit, dress/trap) and consonant structures. Loanword Integration: Phonetic transcriptions of widespread substrate-derived loanwords (from Hokkien, Mandarin, Malay, and Tamil) commonly integrated into everyday Singaporean business and casual speech. Suprasegmental/Prosodic Markers: Alignment with the syllable-timed rhythm and distinct intonational patterns characteristic of Singapore English. Key Deliverables: Phonetic Lexicon Database: A clean, machine-readable dataset (JSON, XML, or CSV format) containing words mapped to standardized phonetic alphabets accepted by modern TTS architectures (e.g., SAMPA, IPA, or Arpabet modified for SgE). Grapheme-to-Phoneme (G2P) Ruleset: Documentation of structural linguistic rules to help the engine handle out-of-vocabulary (OOV) Singaporean terms seamlessly. Integration Support: Collaborating briefly with our engineering team to ensure the lexical database uploads smoothly into our Google Cloud / Google AI Studio pipeline using custom voice tuning or Synthesis Markup Language (SSML) lexicons. Required Qualifications & Certifications: Applicants must possess formalized credentials in this domain. Please do not apply if you do not meet the following criteria: Educational Certification: A Master’s Degree or Ph.D. in Linguistics, Phonetics, Computational Linguistics, or a closely related field. Professional Expertise: Proven experience in lexicography, phonetic transcription, or building Lexicons specifically for speech synthesis (TTS) or automated speech recognition (ASR). Localization Knowledge: Native or near-native familiarity with the linguistic nuances, phonology, and sociolinguistics of Singaporean English and Singlish. Technical Familiarity: Understanding of speech technology frameworks and formatting data to be compatible with cloud speech architectures (experience with Google Cloud Speech tools is highly preferred).