Senior Research Scientist

Overview

The Kostas Research Institute (KRI) at Northeastern University is seeking a Research & Development Engineer with expertise in ML&AI to work as part of a multi‑disciplinary team on cutting‑edge applied R&D projects. The role is based at the NU Innovation Campus in Burlington, MA, and involves collaborating with academic and industry partners to develop prototype solutions in autonomous systems, robotics, cognitive and distributed sensing, and machine learning systems.

• Provide technical contributions as a software engineer for ML/AI projects, including autonomy, sensing, communication, and decision support systems.
• Collaborate with KRI consortium partners to create solutions and prototypes across various application areas.
• Engage with KRI Senior R&D Engineers/Scientists on government and industry contracts.
• Turn machine learning technologies into practical, state‑of‑the‑art systems.

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, Applied Mathematics, or a closely related field.
• 5+ years of professional experience in software engineering focused on ML/AI systems development.
• Preferred advanced degree (M.S. or Ph.D.) with applied ML/AI, network science, optimization, or data‑intensive systems focus.
• Experience supporting government, defense, or security‑related R&D programs.
• Experience developing or integrating simulation‑based models for system analysis, experimentation, or decision support.

• Strong proficiency in Python and modern ML/AI development workflow.
• Experience with C++ and/or Java for performance‑critical components is a plus.
• Demonstrated experience designing, implementing, and testing end‑to‑end ML/AI and/or simulation‑driven software systems.
• Hands‑on experience with machine learning frameworks, particularly PyTorch.
• Experience with high‑performance computing (HPC), distributed compute, or accelerated environments (GPUs, multi‑node systems).
• Solid background in database systems, including PostgreSQL/SQL and graph databases (Neo4j, Memgraph, or equivalent).
• Familiarity with cloud computing environments (Azure, AWS, or Gov Cloud) and containerized or scalable ML workflows.
• Strong software engineering fundamentals: version control, modular design, testing, documentation, and reproducibility.
• Proven ability to rapidly prototype novel solutions and transition them toward robust, deployable systems.
• Self‑motivated team member capable of contributing to technical planning, system architecture decisions, and problem decomposition.
• U.S. citizenship with the ability to obtain and maintain a security clearance.

• Experience with Retrieval‑Augmented Generation (RAG) architectures, vector databases, embedding pipelines, and LLM‑integrated systems.
• Strong background in network science and graph analytics.
• Experience with modeling and simulation techniques (network, agent‑based, discrete‑event, Monte Carlo, synthetic data generation).
• Experience integrating simulation outputs with ML models and decision‑support systems.
• Deep understanding of PostgreSQL/PostGIS, geospatial analytics, and spatiotemporal datasets.
• Exposure to UI or frontend development for technical dashboards or analyst‑facing tools (Svelte, React, or similar).
• Familiarity with MLOps practices, experiment tracking, and reproducible research pipelines.
• Experience collaborating with multidisciplinary teams across research, engineering, and operational stakeholders.

• 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 diverse application areas and contribute to proposals, publications, whitepapers, etc. (10%)

Benefits include a retirement plan, tuition waiver for classes and advanced degree programs, medical, vision, dental coverage, paid time off, wellness programs, and commuting/transportation support.

Grade/

Pay Type:

113S

Expected Salary: $ – $, depending on education, experience, and other factors.

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.