NLP Engineer - Proto

We’re on a mission to make certain that the conversational AI revolution benefits everyone in emerging markets regardless of gender, geography, income or level of education. Machines are increasingly awesome at understanding English, but what about the 5+ billion people who need to communicate in their native language?

Proto automates multilingual customer support with a vertically-integrated product suite and the proprietary Natural Language Processing (NLP) engine for Chinese, Tagalog, Vietnamese, Swahili, Igbo, Yoruba, Thai and many more languages. Our core tech includes IP for mixed-language understanding and semi-supervised chat history structuring (we really love NLP).

We’re a fast-growing SaaS business with a laser-focus on being the AI Customer Experience (AICX) market-leader within the Financial, Energy and Gaming verticals in priority emerging markets.

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How We Work

Build fast with usage: We deploy functional products and iterate fast with real-time usage. With this approach, Proto rapidly implements cutting-edge NLP tech.

Lead first into frontiers: We target customer segments in underserved markets around the world. With this curiosity, Proto ventures first where others overlook.

Stay Hyper-Global: We’re a team with Taiwanese and Rwandan devs, building Canadian software, powered by Thai NLP for Swedish clients based in the Philippines.

OUR TECH & ROADMAP

Proto is driven by its passion to ensure that the conversational AI revolution benefits everyone from all corners of the Earth. To do this, we’re commercializing localized NLP techniques for every task in the customer support domain: livechat, ticketing, translation, chatbot training, upselling, and more. The combined power of the product suite and the NLP engine outperforms singular solutions like Microsoft LUIS or Zendesk in emerging markets.

In terms of the product suite, the backend of Proto consists of several python (micro) services communicating through a message queue server. This infrastructure is optimized for clients with 24/7 contact centers thus, testing and high-availability are critical to us. We are hosted on a multi-region GCP infrastructure and rely heavily on Kubernetes and Google Cloud SQL (Postgres) to achieve high levels of stability and performance. The frontend of Proto consists of interfaces with cutting-edge UX principles that blend AI functionality with the tasks of contact center agents.

In terms of the NLP engine, Proto’s research team is constantly testing and deploying the latest deep-learning techniques for domain and language-specific phenomena (i.e. slang within the Filipino financial complaints domain). This NLP research and development is always client-driven with immediate deployment into the field and with support from the governments of Canada and the European Union.

Proto’s roadmap is focused on proactive chat, churn prediction and increased vertical-integration as the AI Customer Experience industry consolidates.

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DO YOUR BEST WORK, FROM ANYWHERE

Here Are Our Cultural Principles

As a remote-first company, our top priority is to implement new ways of enabling your maximum productivity, happiness, and contributions to the global team. To accomplish this, we receive incredible support from the Creative Destruction Lab, Next Canada, the National Research Council of Canada, and Enterprise Malta. The company founders are Canadian-Italian and Taiwanese, both with military backgrounds. We have set a cultural tone of high-accountability and high-inclusiveness that is respectful of all the cultures represented in the company.

Gender Equality: We strive to maintain an even gender balance with mission-critical leadership opportunities for women.

Multicultural: We align hiring to local market demands with a particular focus on polyglots and SaaS professionals.

Age Neutral: We combine the best attributes of every generation with opportunities matched to each member’s technical and lived experience.

Software: Daily communication and accountability is performed via various collaboration softwares, such as Slack, Monday, Github, JIRA, etc.

About You

Smarty Pants: Masters Degree or PhD in a related field.

Strategic Thinker: Contribute to the company’s technical product development & roadmap.

Multilingual: Native or fluent speaker of 1-2 languages.

Cool Cookie: This is a startup. We plan ahead but we must also be nimble and fast to adapt. If we asked your friends, they would say you’re the calmest person they know in tough situations.

NICE TO HAVES (BUT NOT DEALBREAKERS)

• Familiarity with machine learning tools like Scikit-learn, PyTorch and Tensorflow
• Experience with Python 3
• Knowledge of RESTful API, gRPC, airflow, message queue
• Experience with parser, semantic role labeling, or sentiment analysis, name entity recognition
• Fluent in Twi

DO NOT APPLY IF (ABSOLUTE DEALBREAKERS)

• You’re in school, running a startup, etc.
• You cannot provide up to three references
• You have a preference for unambiguous tasks
• Your dream job is at a big, name-brand company
• You’ll only be available 9-5 in your local timezone
• You prefer problem-solving to be done by management
• You consider an office with a ping-pong table to be a “perk”
• You have difficulties working with people from certain ethnicity, religions or genders
• You expect your company and colleagues to create the processes required for your success
• You have ever quit a job within one month of employment for a non-emergency reason or failed to provide a notice period

Compensation & Benefits

• 20 vacation days
• Above market salary
• Remote / flexible work
• Competitive commission
• Pets allowed at work (Vancouver office)
• Total ownership of your work and results
• Constant and immediate access to company leadership

NOTE: Proto’s screening process will not always identify these factors, so please only submit your candidacy if these do not apply.