Senior Research Scientist

Cerence develops AI-powered assistants for cars, designed to enhance the in-cabin experience by making journeys more engaging, informative, and secure for everyone. Advanced AI modeling is a key technology driving the core of our virtual assistant systems.

The candidate will collaborate with Cerence's AI modeling research and language rollout teams, analyze and prepare data to facilitate the continuous improvement of AI models across languages for specific automotive and other use cases.

Job Description:

The candidate will join Cerence's Modeling team, which delivers advanced ASR, NLU and GenAI models as core components for the main Cerence products. This is an international, dynamic team that leverages innovative AI technologies to enable our customers to set up effective and attractive assistant systems.

We are looking for a motivated senior research scientist to join us design, develop and optimize the current ASR and wake-up word models for the automotive and mobility markets. In this role you will work with state-of-the-art machine learning techniques to deliver a top-of-class in-car AI experience.

Daily Functions / Responsibilities:

• Analyze customer requirements and translate them into ASR feature specifications.

• Define and prepare data required for training ASR models.

• Develop and optimize algorithms for wake-up word (WuW) recognition.

• Leverage existing tools and technologies or innovate new ones to meet project needs.

• Collaborate with application engineers and QA teams to deliver high-quality ASR/WuW solutions within project scope.

• Develop demos and deploy ASR solutions across HW/SW platforms such as Android, Linux, and QNX.

• Contribute to process development and maintenance for production use in key projects.
• Support benchmarking activities and other strategic management initiatives.

Must Have:

• Education: Master University degree in Computational Linguistics, Computer Science, Information technology or a comparable field.

• Number of years of work experience: 3 or more

• Good oral and written knowledge of the English language.

• Solid background in ASR with familiarity in acoustic modeling and ASR tools.

• Proficiency in C/C++ and scripting languages (Bash, Python, Matlab etc.).

• Hands-on experience in speech recognition accuracy evaluation and performance tuning.

• Strong problem-solving skills; self-driven and diligent in addressing real-world challenges.

• Good communication and teamwork skills.

• Ability to work independently, while yet being a team player.

• Positive "can-do" attitude, well organized, focusing on achieving results cost-effectively.

• Self-learner, with sense of initiative, and perseverance to deliver high quality work.

Good to Have:

• Knowledge of languages other than English.

• Background in speech technology or language process

Cerence Inc. (Nasdaq: CRNC and ) is the global industry leader in creating unique, moving experiences for the automotive world. Spun out from Nuance in October 2019, Cerence is a new, independent company that has quickly gained traction as a leader in the automotive voice assistant space, working with all of the world's leading automakers – from Ford and Fiat Chrysler to Daimler, Audi and BMW to Geely and SAIC – to transform how a car feels, responds and learns. Its track record is built on more than 20 years of industry experience and leadership and more than 500 million cars on the road today across more than 70 languages.  

As Cerence looks to the future and continues an ambitious growth agenda, we need someone to join the team and help build the future of voice and AI in cars. This is an exciting opportunity to join Cerence's passionate, dedicated, global team and be a part of meaningful innovation in a rapidly growing industry. 

Cerence is firmly committed to Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) and to compliance with all federal, state and local laws that prohibit employment discrimination on the basis of age, race, color, gender, gender identity, gender expression, sex, sex stereotyping, pregnancy, national origin, ancestry, religion, physical or mental disability, medical condition, marital status, citizenship status, sexual orientation, protected military or veteran status, genetic information and other protected classifications. Cerence Equal Employment Opportunity Policy Statement.

All prospective and current Employees need to remain vigilant when it comes to executing security policies in the workplace. This includes:

- Following workplace security protocols and training programs to familiarize with the ways to maintain a safe workplace.
- Following security procedures to report any suspicious activity.
- Having respect for corporate security procedures to allow those procedures to be effective.
- Adhering to company's compliance and regulations.
- Encouraging to follow a zero tolerance for workplace violence.

- Basic knowledge of information security and data privacy requirements (e.g., how to protect data & how to be handling this data).

- Demonstrative knowledge of information security through internal training programs.