Machine Learning Team Lead

Modulate is the leader in conversational voice intelligence. We enable enterprises to deeply understand how people communicate and take timely action based on those insights. Our products help detect harm, prevent fraud, and build safer, more trusted online and real-world voice environments. We are building a Conversation Intelligence Platform — APIs, workflows, and applications that bring voice understanding to customers at enterprise scale.

We’re looking for a Machine Learning Team Lead to guide and grow our ML research and engineering team. This role combines deep technical expertise in machine learning with strong leadership skills to ensure the team is focused, effective, and aligned with business priorities. You will work closely with executive stakeholders while supporting a high-performing, collaborative research team.

Your Impact

• Lead and support Modulate’s machine learning research and engineering team

• Ensure the team is aligned with business priorities and product needs

• Help grow team capability through hiring, mentoring, and skill development

• Maintain high team morale and an effective, collaborative culture

• Drive clarity on feasibility, prioritization, and estimation of ML work

• Ensure Modulate continues to ship high-quality, impactful ML models

What You Will Do

• Collaborate with engineers, researchers, and executives (CTO, CEO, VP Product/Design) on ML strategy and priorities

• Deeply understand the team’s models and research to guide technical direction

• Help prioritize research and engineering efforts based on impact and feasibility

• Support the team in designing, training, and shipping machine learning models

• Mentor researchers and engineers and support their technical growth

• Participate in hiring and team expansion efforts

• Communicate model performance and tradeoffs to technical and non-technical stakeholders

• Optionally contribute directly to ML research and engineering work as an IC when needed

• Ensure strong collaboration across research, engineering, and product teams

What We Are Looking For

• Experience conducting machine learning research and shipping models

• Experience collaborating closely with other researchers (peer, lead, or mentor level)

• Experience communicating research externally (papers, conferences, etc.)

• Strong experience with Python and PyTorch

• Ability to understand and guide complex ML systems and tradeoffs

• Strong leadership, communication, and organizational skills

• Ability to align technical work with business priorities

Nice to Have

• Prior experience managing ML researchers or ML engineering teams

• Experience working with audio models or speech systems (ASR, TTS, etc.)

• Experience with cloud infrastructure, especially AWS

• Experience in fast-paced startup environments

Benefits

• Competitive salary + equity

• Full health, dental, and vision coverage

• Flexible PTO with strong culture of taking it

• Weekly team lunches with dietary accommodations

• Hybrid work with core in-office days and flexible remote options

• Leadership and technical learning sessions

• Career development and continued growth support

• Up to 8 weeks work-from-anywhere policy

• A deeply inclusive, human-centered culture

Pay Transparency
Modulate believes in transparency as a cornerstone of equity and trust. Compensation for this role is based on seniority, skills, and experience.

• Salary: $170k-210K

• Equity: Offered

• Other perks: HSA, FSA, 15 holidays, professional development resources

Candidates may be located anywhere in the U.S., with preference for proximity to major tech hubs such as San Francisco, Seattle, Boston, New York, or Austin.

About Modulate
Modulate is on a mission to make voice a force for good online. Our tools help communities thrive by proactively detecting toxic behavior, protecting user identity, and empowering safety teams. We’re trusted by leaders in gaming and beyond—and we’re growing fast. We believe that great cultures don’t just happen. That’s why we’ve built a foundation of intentional systems: from bias-reducing hiring practices to transparent pay to tools that help teams collaborate across communication styles. At Modulate, we treat people like people—and we’re building technology that does the same.

Ready to join us? Apply here or reach out directly—we’re excited to meet you.

A quick note as you apply

• Please apply through the website rather than emailing [email protected]

• For application questions (“Your fit for the role,” “Your values/goals,” and “Why Modulate?”), focus on relevant experience and motivations

• Avoid including protected demographic information

• Keep responses authentic and in your own voice

We may use artificial intelligence (AI) tools to support parts of the hiring process, such as reviewing applications, analyzing resumes, or assessing responses. These tools assist our recruitment team but do not replace human judgment. Final hiring decisions are ultimately made by humans. If you would like more information about how your data is processed, please contact us.