Research Scientist

About the Opportunity

This job description isintended to describe the general nature and level of work being performed by people assigned to this isnot intended to be construed as an exhaustive list of all responsibilities duties and skills required of personnel so classified.

Job Summary:
The Kostas Research Institute (KRI) at Northeastern University (NU) a rapidly growing institute that conducts cutting-edge applied R&D is seeking a highly motivated experienced and enthusiastic Research & Development (R&D) Engineer with expertise in ML&AI. The R&D Engineer is expected to work as part of a multi-disciplinary team and contribute to the successful execution of R&D projects.

Responsibilities include providing technical contributions as a software engineer for a wide range of projects involving machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) including autonomy sensing and communication and decision support systems among others. The R&D Engineer will work collaboratively with multi-disciplinary teams across the KRI consortium consisting of academic and industry partners to create solutions and prototypes for projects in application areas including autonomous systems robotics cognitive and distributed sensing and machine learning systems among others.

Successful candidates will be responsible team players and passionate about machine learning technologies as well as possess a deep understanding of machine learning technology and experience in turning machine learning technologies into practical state-of-the-art systems. A close working relationship with and support of KRI Senior R&D Engineers/Scientists for government and industry contracts will be required.

The Kostas Research Institute was founded with a focus on homeland security research and development. Today KRI strives to advance resilience in the face of 21st century risks across a wide range of technologies emphasizing a collaborative approach that leverages our R1 university intellectual capital and technologies to develop application-specific solutions to customer needs. KRI focuses on satisfying customer-driven needs by co-locating a diverse highly skilled R&D team that can address all aspects of a particular problem across the full range of technology-readiness levels. KRI headquarters located at the NU Innovation Campus in Burlington MA (ICBM) is home to one-of-a-kind research and test facilities for conducting activities related to cognitive and distributed RF signal processing and machine learning unmanned and autonomous system technologies as well as quantum materials and sensing.

This position is with KRI at Northeastern University LLC a wholly-owned subsidiary of NU. The primary office for this position is located at NUs ICBM. Through NU KRI offers an impressive benefits package including multiple retirement plan options with extremely generous matching as well as tuition waiver for classes and advanced degree programs. A full description of available benefits can be found on the NU website.

Education & Experience

• Bachelors or Masters degree in Electrical Engineering Computer Engineering Computer Science Applied Mathematics or a closely related field.
• 24 years of professional experience in software engineering data science or applied R&D with exposure to machine learning and AI system development in research prototype or production environments.

Preferred

• Masters degree with a focus on ML/AI dataintensive systems network science optimization or related areas.
• Experience contributing to government defense or securityrelated R&D programs (internships fellowships or fulltime roles).
• Familiarity with simulationbased models (e.g. physicsbased networkbased agentbased or stochastic simulations) for analysis experimentation or decision support.

Skills & Attributes

• Proficiency in Python and familiarity with modern ML/AI development workflows.
• Exposure to C and/or Java for performancecritical components is a plus.
• Experience contributing to the design implementation testing or evaluation of ML/AIenabled or simulationdriven software systems.
• Handson experience with machine learning frameworks (e.g. PyTorch) including model training evaluation and experimentation.
• Familiarity with distributed or accelerated computing environments (e.g. GPUenabled systems shared compute clusters).
• Working knowledge of database systems including:
• Relational databases (e.g. PostgreSQL / SQL)
• Exposure to graph databases (e.g. Neo4j Memgraph or similar)
• Familiarity with cloud computing environments (e.g. Azure AWS or GovCloud equivalents) including containerized or scalable ML workflows.
• Solid software engineering fundamentals including version control modular code design testing documentation and reproducibility.
• Ability to rapidly prototype solutions and iterate toward more robust implementations with guidance from senior engineers.
• Selfmotivated team member able to work independently on welldefined tasks while contributing to broader project objectives.
• U.S. Citizenship with the ability to obtain and maintain a security clearance.

Desired Skills & Attributes

• Exposure to RetrievalAugmented Generation (RAG) vector databases embedding pipelines or LLMenabled systems.
• Familiarity with network science or graph analytics concepts including:
• Graph modeling and analysis using tools such as NetworkX
• Introductory experience with graphbased ML or GNNs is a plus
• Experience or coursework involving modeling and simulation techniques such as:
• Network agentbased or discreteevent simulation
• Monte Carlo or stochastic simulation methods
• Synthetic data generation or simulationintheloop workflows
• Exposure to geospatial data spatiotemporal datasets or PostgreSQL/PostGIS is a plus.
• Interest in UI or frontend development for technical or analystfacing tools (e.g. Svelte React or similar frameworks).
• Familiarity with MLOps concepts experiment tracking or reproducible research pipelines.
• Experience working with multidisciplinary teams across research engineering and applied R&D environments.
• Active security clearance is a plus.

Key Responsibilities & Accountabilities:
Software R&D activities including software development and implementation prototype modeling & simulation design and experimentation. (45%)

Test and validation of software systems and software for prototype deployment. (45%)

Provide software development subject matter expertise across a diverse set of application areas and contribute to proposals publications whitepapers etc. (10%)

Position Type

Additional Information

Northeastern University considers factors such as candidate work experience education and skills when extending an offer.

All qualified applicants are encouraged to apply and will receive consideration for employment without regard to race religion color national origin age sex sexual orientation disability status or any other characteristic protected by applicable law.

Compensation Grade/Pay Type:

Expected Hiring Range:

With the pay range(s) shown above the starting salary will depend on several factors which may include your education experience location knowledge and expertise and skills as well as a pay comparison to similarly-situated employees already in the role. Salary ranges are reviewed regularly and are subject to change.