Principal Research Architect

At Bose Corporation, we believe sound is the most powerful force on earth — and for over 60 years, we have been a company built on innovation, excellence, and independence. Privately owned, fiercely customer-focused, and driven by our values, we continue to lead industries and transform lives through sound.

Today, Bose Corporation is entering an exciting new era. Across multiple global Business Units and Global Functions, we are shaping the future of audio technology, automotive, luxury, and premium experiences. We invite you to join us in this transformation.

Job Description

Bose is seeking a hands-on research architect to design, build and evaluate experimental hardware and software systems. Working in a multidisciplinary research team, you will compare architectural approaches, integrate emerging technologies and use measured results to guide technical decisions.

We are looking for a builder with a tinkerer’s curiosity who enjoys connecting devices, writing code and investigating unexpected behavior. You will work with researchers and prototyping engineers to turn open questions into repeatable experiments and reusable learning.

Many of the models and algorithms you integrate will come from other Research teams. You will use your understanding of ML architectures and processing pipelines to evaluate system implications and provide useful feedback to model developers. Your primary responsibility is system architecture and integration; model-development experience is valuable background.

Job Responsibilities

- Design, implement and compare software and system architectures through working prototypes and repeatable experiments.

- Translate research questions into experiment specifications, baseline comparisons, measurable evaluation criteria and failure tests.

- Write and debug critical software components, working directly with devices, sensors and compute platforms.

- Define and test APIs, data models, messaging approaches and interfaces across hardware, models and software services.

- Collaborate with Research teams to integrate ML models and signal-processing capabilities into working systems.

- Evaluate how model inputs, representations and inference requirements affect quality, latency, memory, compute, power and reliability. Provide actionable feedback to model developers.

- Compare processing placement, communication and coordination approaches, including behavior when connectivity or components fail.

- Define synchronization, instrumentation and reproducibility requirements with the engineers implementing experiments.

- Evaluate third-party technologies against internal or open alternatives, considering technical fit, integration effort, portability and maintenance.

- Work with security, privacy and platform specialists on trust boundaries, data access and appropriate handling of sensor data.

- Document evidence, architectural decisions and unresolved questions. Mentor engineers while remaining actively involved in implementation.

Required Qualifications

- Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Systems Engineering, Robotics or a related technical discipline.

- 10+ years of experience designing, architecting and delivering complex software or systems solutions.

- Proven experience architecting connected-device, embedded, distributed, IoT, robotics, or edge-computing systems, including hands-on integration and evaluation of ML models and an understanding of how model architecture affects system behavior.

- Hands-on software development and prototyping experience, with the ability to build, debug and evaluate experimental systems. Experience with Python or comparable tools used in ML and systems research is valuable.

- Practical experience developing software on Linux-based and/or embedded platforms.

- Deep understanding of networking, APIs, messaging systems, event-driven architectures and software integration patterns.

- Experience debugging and measuring behavior across hardware, software and communication boundaries.

- Practical understanding of ML processing pipelines, including input preparation, representations and inference, sufficient to discuss trade-offs with model developers.

- Demonstrated ability to compare implementations, interpret measurements and revise architectural decisions based on evidence.

- Strong technical communication and collaboration skills, with curiosity and initiative as requirements evolve through experiments.

- Experience designing or integrating audio or multimedia systems, with an understanding of streaming pipelines, timing, synchronization and latency.

Preferred Qualifications

- Master’s degree or higher in a related engineering or computer science discipline.

- Prior experience developing or training ML models, providing practical insight into model-design trade-offs.

- Experience deploying or optimizing inference on resource-constrained hardware.

- Experience with MQTT, ROS 2, Bluetooth/BLE, device discovery or comparable communication frameworks.

- Background in robotics, connected products, wearables, automotive systems, industrial automation, sensing or audio.

- Experience experimenting with agentic development tools or building agent workflows, with an understanding of tool integration, execution boundaries, testing and human oversight.

- Experience guiding research or advanced-development work and turning experimental findings into reusable engineering approaches.

At Bose, you're inspired to be and do your best and are rewarded for your unique talents! Our compensation is thoughtfully tailored to your skills, experience, education, and location, and goes beyond base salary. The hiring range for this position in the primary work location of Framingham, Massachusetts is: $168,300-$231,450.The hiring range for other Bose work locations may vary.

In addition to competitive base pay we offer rewards including bonus programs, comprehensive health and welfare benefits, a 401(k) plan, plus exclusive perks designed to support your wellbeing, and a generous employee discount where you can immerse yourself in our products and experiences. We are a proudly independent company—driven by purpose, guided by our values, and united by a belief in the power of sound. As the world leader in audio experiences, we’re creating what’s next—pushing boundaries and delivering transformative sound experiences for people everywhere. Join us and make your next career move a mic-drop. Let’s Make Waves.
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