{"id":462264,"url":"https://alion.io/job/cerence-sr-principal-software-scientist","title":"Sr. Principal Software Scientist","company":{"id":178070,"name":"Cerence","domain":"cerence.com","url":"https://alion.io/company/cerence","size_band":"1001-5000","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Workday","truth_index":{"grade":"B","score":77,"open_postings":11,"ghost_share":0,"stale_share":0.909,"repost_share":0,"time_to_fill_p50_days":26,"computed_at":"2026-10-25T05:49:26Z"}},"role":"Science & Research","role_family":"Science & Research","seniority":"lead","employment_type":"full_time","work_mode":"remote","remote_scope":"stated_countries","remote_scope_basis":"board_field","remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["United States"],"countries":["US"],"hiring_countries":["US"],"hiring_countries_total":1,"salary":{"min":185000,"max":280000,"currency":"USD","period":"year","gross":null,"usd_annual":280000},"salary_estimate":null,"experience_years_min":null,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":true,"technologies":[{"name":"DPO","optional":false},{"name":"FSDP","optional":false},{"name":"GRPO","optional":false},{"name":"KV Cache","optional":false},{"name":"Mixture of Experts","optional":false},{"name":"Multimodal AI","optional":false},{"name":"RLHF","optional":false},{"name":"Transformers","optional":false},{"name":"World Models","optional":false}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-07-03T00:00:00Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-07-03","last_verified_at":"2026-10-24T10:04:16Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":115,"trust":{"level":"stale","repost_count":0,"flags":["stale"],"days_open":114},"description":"A Moving Experience.\nWho is Cerence AI?\nCerence AI is the global leader in AI for transportation, specialized in building AI and voice-powered companions for cars, two-wheelers, and more that enable people to focus on what matters most. With over 500 million cars shipped with Cerence AI's technology, we partner with leading automakers (such as Volkswagen, Mercedes, Audi, Toyota and many more), mobility providers, and technology companies to power intuitive, integrated experiences that create safer, more connected, and more enjoyable journeys for drivers and passengers alike.\nOur Driving Force\nOur team is dedicated to pushing the boundaries of AI innovation, working around the globe with headquarters in Burlington, Massachusetts, USA and 16 other offices across Europe, Asia, and North America. We bring together diverse backgrounds, and varied skill sets with the shared goal of advancing the next generation of transportation user experiences. Our culture is customer-centric, collaborative, fast-paced, and fun, with continuous opportunities for learning and development to support your career growth.\nInterested in having a significant impact in a dynamic industry with a high-performing global team? We’re looking for an exceptional SeniorPrincipalAI Scientist in Generative AI who is ready to drive the future of mobility with us!\nWhat You Will Work On\nDesign and train large -scale transformer and hybrid foundation models\n\nOwn model architecture choices across text, multimodal, and emerging paradigms\n\nDiagnose and resolve training instabilities at scale\n\nNavigate scaling tradeoffs across data, compute, and architecture\n\nDefine the technical direction for next-generation models\n\nCore Responsibilities\nDeep Learning & Transformer Foundations\nApply strong fundamentals in deep learning and representation learning\n\nDesign and modify transformer architectures, including:\n\nAttention variants\n\nRoPE, ALiBi\n\nGrouped Query Attention (GQA)\n\nMixture -of - Experts (MoE)\n\nBuild models from first principles, not just adapt pre-existing codebases\n\nOptimisationDynamics & Training Stability\nOwn optimizer and scheduler choices, including:\n\nAdamW\n\nLion\n\nAdafactor\n\nLearning-rate and warmup schedulers\n\nUnderstand and debug:\n\nOptimizer instability\n\nGradient pathologies\n\nDivergence at large scale\n\nScaling Laws & Compute Tradeoffs\nApply and validate scaling laws\n\nNavigate Chinchilla -style compute vs data tradeoffs\n\nMake informed decisions about model size, dataset size, and training duration\n\nLoss Functions & Alignment\nDesign and experiment with loss functions including:\n\nNext -token prediction\n\nContrastive objectives\n\nRLHF, DPO, GRPO\n\nUnderstand how loss design impacts convergence, generalization, and alignment\n\nDistributed Foundation Model Training\nDesign and execute large-scale training using:\n\nFSDP\n\nZeRO - 3\n\nTensor parallelism\n\nPipeline parallelism\n\nApply\n\nMixed precision (bf16, fp8)\n\nGradient checkpointing\n\nPartner closely with ML systems teams while retaining architectural ownership\n\nArchitecture Innovation\nExplore and implement novel model designs, including:\n\nMoErouting strategies\n\nMultimodal fusion architectures\n\nSSM / hybrid architectures\n\nDesign architectures with KV cache efficiency and inference implications in mind\n\nWhat Success Looks Like\nTraining remains stable as models scale in size and complexity\n\nArchitectural decisions are principled and defensible\n\nModels converge faster and generalize better due to architecture and optimisation choices\n\nFailure modes are understood, not mysterious\n\nThe organization develops true in -house foundation model expertise\n\nRequired Experience & Skills\nStrongly Required\nDeep theoretical and practical understanding of modern deep learning\n\nHands-on experience training large models from scratch\n\nAbility to reason about optimization, not just tune hyperparameters\n\nComfort operating in ambiguous, research-driven environments\n\nCritical Technical Skills\nTransformer internals and attention mechanisms\n\nOptimisationalgorithms and training dynamics\n\nScaling laws and compute/data tradeoffs\n\nDistributed training strategies and mixed precision\n\nArchitecture innovation for large, real-world models\n\nCommon Problems You’ll Be Solving\nWhy training diverges at scale\n\nHow optimizer dynamics interact with architecture\n\nWhen scaling laws break down\n\nThe real tradeoffs between data, compute, and model design\n\nWhat we offer\nWe offer a generous compensation and benefits package (in addition to the base salary), including:\nSalary range $185,000.00 - $280,000.00 It is not typical for offers to be made at or near the top of the range. The actual salary will be determined based on experience and other job-related factors.\n\nAnnual bonus opportunity\n\nInsurance coverage (medical, dental, vision, life, and disability)\n\nPaid time off\n\nPaid holidays\n\nCompany contribution to the RRSP (Registered Retirement Savings Plan)\n\nEquity awards for certain positions and levels\n\nRemote and/or hybrid work available depending on the position\n\nAll compensation and benefits are subject to the terms and conditions of the underlying plans or programs, as applicable, and may be amended, terminated, or replaced from time to time.\nCerence Inc. (Nasdaq: CRNC and www.cerence.com) 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.\nAs 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.\nEQUAL OPPORTUNITY EMPLOYER\nCerence 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.\nAll prospective and current Employees need to remain vigilant when it comes to executing security policies in the workplace. This includes:\n- Following workplace security protocols and training programs to familiarize with the ways to maintain a safe workplace.\n- Following security procedures to report any suspicious activity.\n- Having respect for corporate security procedures to allow those procedures to be effective.\n- Adhering to company's compliance and regulations.\n- Encouraging to follow a zero tolerance for workplace violence.\n- Basic knowledge of information security and data privacy requirements (e.g., how to protect data & how to be handling this data).\n- Demonstrative knowledge of information security through internal training programs.","description_format":"text","description_chars":7503,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":null,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":null,"security_clearance":false,"languages":[]},"benefits":["Equity","Hybrid work","Insurance coverage","Retirement plans"],"hiring_locations":[{"name":"United States","iso":"US","kind":"country"}],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["Artificial Intelligence","Conversational AI","Speech & Audio AI"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-09-06T11:26:14Z"}],"visa":[],"liveness":{"score":10,"band":"cold","label":"Long shot","p_open":1,"p_active":0.363,"p_room":0.28,"age_days":114,"expected_fill_days":26,"reasons":["conf:19","stale_co","velocity","win:tail","crowd:"],"computed_at":"2026-10-25T05:49:26Z"},"pay":{"stated_usd_annual":280000,"is_top_pay":true},"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/cerence-sr-principal-software-scientist","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/cerence-sr-principal-software-scientist.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-10-26T00:04:47Z","cache_seconds":300,"methodology":"https://alion.io/methodology","terms":"https://alion.io/terms","contact":"https://alion.io/contact","api":"https://alion.io/developers","about":"Alion is a live layer of people, companies and AI agents: who they are, whether they are real and active right now, what they do and how to work with them, readable by people and by agents and paid per call.","catalog":"https://alion.io/catalog.json","usage":{"tier":"crawler_verified","counted_by":"address","units_charged":1,"used_today":47,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-10-27T00:00:00Z"}},"offers":[{"id":"company.slices","title":"One company in depth, by slice","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002,"plus_per_slice":{"credits":0.05,"usd":0.005}},"unit":"per company, plus each slice with data","note":"the employer in depth","call":{"mcp_tool":"get_company","arguments":{"id":178070},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=178070"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Fcerence-sr-principal-software-scientist"},{"id":"market.stats","title":"A market slice: pay, demand and time to fill","status":"live","price":{"credits":1,"usd":0.1},"unit":"per slice","note":"pay, demand and time to fill for this role and place","call":{"mcp_tool":"market_stats"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=market.stats&for=job%2Fcerence-sr-principal-software-scientist"},{"id":"job.search","title":"Open jobs by role, technology, place, pay and visa","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002},"unit":"per posting in a list","note":"similar open postings","call":{"mcp_tool":"search_jobs"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=job.search&for=job%2Fcerence-sr-principal-software-scientist"},{"id":"company.verify","title":"Is this company real and active right now","status":"pilot","price":null,"unit":"per company","request":{"url":"https://alion.io/catalog/request","method":"POST","body":"{\"offer\": \"company.verify\", \"for\": \"job/cerence-sr-principal-software-scientist\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Fcerence-sr-principal-software-scientist"}]}