Job Description

Acoustic DSP Engineer – Cleared R&D Role | Columbia, MD Lab

Location: Columbia, MD (100% onsite)

Clearance: Secret (or higher) required.

U.S. Citizenship mandatory

Overview

A small, deeply technical, and well-established R&D team that's grown steadily over 25 years is looking for a senior engineer to help build and eventually help lead the next wave of acoustic sensing capabilities for undersea environments.

This is a rare role: high-trust, high-impact, with the kind of mission, ownership, and balance that’s increasingly hard to find.

You’ll work directly with a technical director who’s respected in both Navy and private-sector R&D circles, contributing to ongoing signal processing efforts while helping shape what’s next. Projects are long-running and stable, but far from stagnant: biologically inspired sensing, adaptive classification, and wide-area tracking. The tech is moving. The Navy wants it fielded.

This isn’t proposal farming. It’s not a churn-and-burn shop. It’s a quiet, highly capable team that cares about the work and each other, and wants one more core teammate to grow with them.

What You'll Do

• Build, test, and refine signal processing algorithms for detection, classification, and tracking in complex underwater environments
• Contribute to biologically inspired approaches (e.g., auditory cortex modeling, adaptive DSP) for sensor fusion and clutter rejection
• Collaborate directly with the Director of R&D on concept development, prototype work, and field transition
• Stay hands-on, but grow into leading teams and setting technical direction as trust builds
• Join a portfolio that includes long-term funded Navy projects, active prototypes, and additional sensing work on the horizon
• Help ensure this work doesn't stay in the lab... it ships

Why This Might Be the Right Role

• You're someone who wants to stay close to the tech but also shape what's next
• You're tired of proposal churn, overhead-heavy orgs, or systems that don’t leave the lab
• You want stable, meaningful work that supports real-life balance and growth
• You’d rather co-build with a brilliant technical team than solo something flashy
• You care about mission, but also the people you solve it with

You Might Be a Fit If You Have:

• Strong experience in adaptive signal processing, acoustics, or detection/classification systems
• Familiarity with biologically inspired models, ASOT-style systems, or wide-area sensing
• Experience in MATLAB, Python, or C++ for modeling, prototyping, and simulation
• A background in transitioning R&D into the field (bonus if Navy/DoD related)
• A systems mindset with the ability to zoom in technically and zoom out to see operational needs

Logistics

• Location: Onsite in Columbia, MD
• Salary: $ 175 K-$200 K depending on experience
• Clearance: Secret (must be U.S. Citizen)

If this sounds like the kind of team you’d want to build with, or if you know someone who might quietly be looking, send a... signal.

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