Responsibilities:
- Help shape Sofar’s acoustics research and development strategy, contributing scientific and technical direction for an underwater acoustics platform that supports real-world marine applications
- Develop capabilities to detect, classify, and localize underwater objects using passive and/or active acoustic sensing methods
- Advance methods for creating acoustic maps of the marine environment, including characterization of ambient soundscapes, propagation conditions, and relevant oceanographic context
- Provide an acoustics-centric perspective on sensing system design, deployment strategy, data quality, and performance validation
- Collaborate with Sofar’s oceanic and sensing scientists, software engineers, and firmware teams to translate acoustic research into operational products
- Coordinate and conduct field experiments, data analyses, and simulation studies to evaluate acoustic system performance in real-world ocean conditions
- Bring deep expertise in marine acoustics to complement Sofar’s ocean science, sensing, and forecasting teams
- Contribute to product requirements, technical roadmaps, and research priorities for new underwater acoustic capabilities
- Represent Sofar externally with customers, research partners, government agencies, and the broader ocean acoustics community
Minimum Job Qualifications:
- Deep expertise in underwater acoustics
- Experience developing acoustic sensing systems or algorithms for detection, classification, localization, mapping, or environmental characterization
- Strong understanding of marine acoustic propagation, ambient noise, signal processing, and the practical constraints of ocean sensing
- Experience working with real-world acoustic datasets, field deployments, and/or operational sensing systems
- Experience applying statistical signal processing, machine learning, or modern AI methods to acoustic detection, classification, or environmental inference
- Excellent communication skills, and you excel working in a cross-functional team
- Experience translating scientific research into operational products or customer-facing capabilities
- D. in acoustics, ocean engineering, electrical engineering, applied physics, oceanography, or a related field, but we will consider highly qualified candidates of any education level with equivalent experience
- Strong reputation within the ocean acoustics community, with experience contributing to research programs, technical partnerships, or externally funded work
- Enthusiasm and experience in leveraging LLMs to magnify personal impact
Bonus Points:
- Familiarity with embedded sensing systems, firmware constraints, or edge processing for acoustic applications
- Familiarity with the constraints of autonomous ocean platforms, including limited power, bandwidth, onboard compute, sensor calibration, and long-duration deployments
- Comfort working in production codebases when necessary to personally deliver changes
Salary range: $121,000 – $171,000
Location: San Francisco, CA
