Senior Researcher, Speech Synthesis and Multimodal LLM
Tencent Open · verified Oct 22, 2026 At a glance
Senior AI Research role at Tencent. United Kingdom-London · full-time · no salary stated · we estimate £78,230–£127,625 across the United Kingdom.
Tencent has not published a salary for this role. The figure below is our estimate, not theirs.
aimlroles summary, based on the employer's posting.
What you'll do
- Build speech-generation methods using LLMs, including text-to-speech, voice conversion and sound or music creation
- Improve speech and audio synthesis systems so online services run more effectively, efficiently and at scale
- Advance streaming, full-duplex multimodal models for understanding speech and handling live spoken exchanges
- Take research prototypes into production alongside research and engineering colleagues
What you bring
- A PhD in computer science, electrical engineering, signal processing or a closely related discipline
- Strong knowledge of speech and audio processing, plus generative models such as diffusion or autoregressive approaches
- Practical experience adapting LLMs for speech or audio, including tokenizers, multimodal adapters or joint speech-text training
- Proficiency in Python and deep learning frameworks such as PyTorch
- A publication record at leading research venues, including ICML, NeurIPS or another listed venue
Who this fits
This senior research role suits someone who can connect speech and audio research with production systems. It is based in London, United Kingdom.
From the employer
Business Unit
LIGHTSPEED STUDIOS is made up of passionate players who advance the art & science of game development through great stories, great gameplay, and advanced technology. We are focused on bringing next generation experiences to gamers who want to enjoy them anywhere, anytime, across multiple genres and devices.About the Hiring Team
Lightspeed Tech Center is a R&D department under Lightspeed Studios which develop PUBG Mobile and other high-quality games. Our Tech Center leads the research, exploration, and discovery of innovative technologies and provides technical services for all games during all phases of life cycle, including engine, audio, QA, AI, next generation game, technical cooperation, etc.What the Role Entails
1. Research and develop advanced speech synthesis and generation algorithms (e.g., TTS, voice conversion, sound/music generation) based on LLMs, multimodal/omnimodal LLMs.
2. Develop and optimize speech and audio synthesis systems for online applications, improving effectiveness, efficiency, and scalability.
3. Explore and advance full-duplex/streaming multimodal LLM capabilities in speech understanding, generation, and real-time spoken interaction.
4. Collaborate cross-functionally with research and engineering teams from prototyping to production.
Who We Look For
1. Ph.D. in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Signal Processing, or a closely related field.
2. Strong foundation in speech/audio processing and modern generative models (e.g., diffusion, flow matching, autoregressive, codec-based approaches).
3. Hands-on experience extending LLMs to speech/audio modalities (e.g., speech tokenizers, multimodal adapters, speech-text joint training). Experience with full-duplex or streaming spoken dialogue systems and real-time interaction modeling is a plus.
4. Proficient in Python and deep learning frameworks (e.g., PyTorch); experience with distributed training is a plus.
5. Track record of publications at top-tier venues (e.g., ICML, NeurIPS, ICLR, ACL, ICASSP, Interspeech).
Equal Employment Opportunity at Tencent
As an equal opportunity employer, we firmly believe that diverse voices fuel our innovation and allow us to better serve our users and the community. We foster an environment where every employee of Tencent feels supported and inspired to achieve individual and common goals.