Date Posted: 01/28/2026
Hiring Organization: Rose International
Position Number: 496297
Industry: Social Media
Job Title: Applied Perception Scientist
Job Location: Redmond, WA, USA, 98052
Work Model: Onsite
Shift: Ist Shift
Employment Type: Temporary
FT/PT: Full-Time
Estimated Duration (In months): 13
Min Hourly Rate($): 70.00
Max Hourly Rate($): 84.00
Must Have Skills/Attributes: Research, Time Management
Experience Desired: Deep Learning for Audio/Speech Processing (2 yrs); requires building ML models for speech quality assessment and auditory perception (2 yrs); Designing, training,and evaluating neural networks specifically for audio applications using PyTorch (2 yrs); ML Training Pipeline & Evaluation Framework Development (2 yrs)
Required Minimum Education: Ph.D / Doctorate
**C2C is not available**
Job Description
**Candidates must be local to Redmond, WA; Burlingame, CA; or Boston, MA, as onsite presence is required at one of these offices.**
Required Education:
• PhD degree.
Must-have skills:
• Deep Learning for Audio/Speech Processing: The role requires building ML models for speech quality assessment and auditory perception. The candidate must have hands-on experience designing, training, and evaluating neural networks specifically for audio applications using PyTorch (TensorFlow, Keras much less desirable).
• Psychoacoustic & Perceptual Modeling Expertise: The candidate must understand how humans perceive audio quality, including concepts like speech intelligibility, listening effort, speech degradation, and noise noticeability. This is critical for building models that accurately predict subjective Mean Opinion Scores (MOS) and enable features like Conversation Focus to be evaluated computationally rather than through time-consuming user studies.
• ML Training Pipeline & Evaluation Framework Development: The role requires independently implementing end-to-end ML pipelines: data preparation, model training, hyperparameter tuning, and evaluation using metrics like MAE, Pearson correlation, SI-SDR, PESQ, STOI. Experience with HPC environments for large-scale training is essential.
Good to have skills:
• Binaural audio processing and spatial audio quality assessment
• Speech enhancement experience (noise suppression, dereverberation, speaker separation)
• Experience with audio-visual ML models (multi-modal learning)
• Familiarity with hearing science metrics (HASQI, HASPI, PESQ, POLQA)
• Signal processing fundamentals (DSP, beamforming, acoustic measurements)
• Experience with human participant research and perceptual data collection
• Background in computational hearing science or auditory cognitive neuroscience
Description:
• Reality Labs Research at Client is a leading research organization of world-class researchers, developers, and engineers, who collaborate to actively create a future where virtual and augmented reality become as indispensable as today's smartphones and personal computers.
• The mission of the Reality Labs Research Audio team is to engineer augmented audio that redefines human hearing capabilities. This will allow us to connect people by facilitating conversation in even the most challenging auditory environment.
• We are seeking a contract applied research scientist specializing in building machine learning (ML) models that emulate auditory perception. This role is an integral part of our team, contributing to our research and development efforts. The ideal candidate will help us explore and understand individualized audio quality preferences and experiences, enabling us to tailor our technologies to meet unique user needs.
Responsibilities
• Drive research on improved machine learning models for speech quality, run computational experiments and report findings.
• Implement ML models that emulate aspects of human auditory perception.
• Develop next-gen audio quality models.
• Independently implement ML training pipelines, models, and evaluation frameworks.
• Regularly report on project progress, dependencies and risks to stakeholders.
• Support research scientists and engineers within the team.
• Execute on applied coding tasks in support of the team's goals.
Minimum qualifications
• Interpersonal and communication skills, with strong attention to detail.
• Proactive with ability to execute on multiple projects simultaneously.
• Strong organizational and time management skills.
• Track record of communicating research on ML perception in an academic or industrial setting.
• Experience working in a fast-paced research and/or product development environment.
• Experience with Python or other scientific programming languages.
• Previous experience designing, training, and evaluating neural networks in Pytorch.
• Experience working in a high performance computing environment.
• Master's degree or equivalent experience in Computational Neuroscience, Cognitive Science, Electrical Engineering, Perception, Experimental Psychology, Audio Engineering, Acoustics, Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Biomedical Engineering, Computational Audiology or a related field.
Pursuant to the California Fair Chance Act, Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance for Employers, Los Angeles Fair Chance Initiative for Hiring Ordinance, and San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, qualified applicants will be considered for assignment with arrest and conviction records. Criminal history may have a direct, adverse, and negative relationship with some of the material job duties of this position. These include the duties and responsibilities listed above, as well as the abilities to adhere to company policies, exercise sound judgment, effectively manage stress and work safely and respectfully with others, exhibit trustworthiness, meet client expectations, standards, and accompanying requirements, and safeguard business operations and company reputation. - **Only those lawfully authorized to work in the designated country associated with the position will be considered.**
- **Please note that all Position start dates and duration are estimates and may be reduced or lengthened based upon a client’s business needs and requirements.**
Benefits:
For information and details on employment benefits offered with this position, please visit here. Should you have any questions/concerns, please contact our HR Department via our secure website.
California Pay Equity:
For information and details on pay equity laws in California, please visit the State of California Department of Industrial Relations' website here.
Rose International is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, sexual orientation, gender (expression or identity), national origin, arrest and conviction records, disability, veteran status or any other characteristic protected by law. Positions located in San Francisco and Los Angeles, California will be administered in accordance with their respective Fair Chance Ordinances.
If you need assistance in completing this application, or during any phase of the application, interview, hiring, or employment process, whether due to a disability or otherwise, please contact our HR Department.
Rose International has an official agreement (ID #132522), effective June 30, 2008, with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, Employment Verification Program (E-Verify). (Posting required by OCGA 13/10-91.).
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