Perceptual Audio Engineer (Research)

Description & Requirements

Introduction: A Career at HARMAN Corporate

We're a global, multi-disciplinary team that's putting the innovative power of technology to work and transforming tomorrow. At HARMAN Corporate, you are integral to our company's award-winning success.

• Enrich your managerial and organizational talents - from finance, quality, and supply chain to human resources, IT, sales, and strategy
• Augment your comprehensive skillset with expert training across decision-making, change management, leadership, and business development
• Obtain 360-degree support throughout your career life cycle, from early-stage to seasoned leader

About the Role

The HARMAN Research Intelligent Audio team is working to set a new standard for audio: create experiences that understand the listener, adapt to their environment, and become more personal and useful over time. This can only be achieved when our customers can hear and experience the difference. As a Perceptual Audio Engineer in HARMAN Research, you will define what better sounds like and turn human listening into quantitative guidance for research and product decisions.

Reporting to the Director of Intelligent Audio, you will define perceptual targets, validate metrics, and build reusable evaluation methods and datasets. You will translate what people hear into practical criteria that researchers, engineers, and product teams can use. This is a hands-on research role for someone excited to combine psychoacoustics, experimental rigor, AI tools, and real-world product impact. Success means sound quality and tuning technology is rapidly deployed into products with confidence that listeners will hear the difference.

What You Will Do

• Define what good sounds like: Translate target user experiences into perceptual attributes and measurable success criteria.
• Design a perceptual research program: Build an ambitious program that advances perceptual audio science while addressing clear business and product needs.
• Develop and validate perceptual metrics: Create measures of perceived audio quality, validate them against independent listening data, and define their limits.
• Build reusable evaluation assets: Create datasets, test methods, analysis tools, and benchmarks that other teams can trust and reuse.
• Transfer evidence into products: Turn perceptual findings into product requirements, acceptance criteria, and regression tests in partnership with research and product teams.
• Improve the research workflow: Use AI and automation to make perceptual research faster and more scalable without sacrificing rigor.
• Explain practical significance: Communicate what results mean, how confident we are, and what teams should do next.

What You Need to Be Successful

Essential

• An advanced degree in acoustics, psychoacoustics, hearing science, auditory science, psychology, human factors, statistics, electrical engineering, computer science, or a related field, or demonstrated equivalent experience.

• Significant relevant experience, typically at least five years, in perceptual audio, audio quality evaluation, or related applied research and engineering.
• Strong command of psychoacoustics and experimental design, including sample size reasoning, controlled and blinded studies, repeated measures analysis, effect sizes, confidence intervals, reliability, and transparent treatment of exclusions and multiple comparisons.
• Experience selecting and applying recognized listening test methods, adapting them to the decision at hand, and documenting where a method is valid or unsuitable.
• Experience developing or validating perceptual models against independent human tests, including calibration, generalization, and clustering/subgroup performance.
• Practical fluency with Python, MATLAB, or equivalent analysis tools, together with reproducible code, data, and reporting practices.
• Ability to convert findings into practical criteria and gain adoption across research, engineering, validation, integration, and product teams.
• Demonstrated use of modern AI methods to improve a perceptual evaluation system or research workflow. You can explain what you built, how it was validated, and how it improved quality, speed, scale, or product outcomes.

Preferred

• Experience evaluating loudspeakers, headphones, automotive audio, voice quality, or adaptive audio experiences.
• Knowledge of auditory physiology, neuroscience, or cognitive factors that materially affect listening behavior, sound quality, spatial perception, comfort, or fatigue.
• Experience creating perceptual metrics and methods that become shared organizational standards and improve decision speed and quality.
• Familiarity with embedded constraints for metrics built with machine learning and with the product validation systems that consume perceptual criteria.
• Patents, publications, or standards work in perceptual audio or audio quality evaluation. Demonstrated product impact matters more than credentials alone.

What Makes You Eligible

• Successfully complete a background investigation and drug screen as a condition of employment after an offer.

What We Offer

• Access to employee discounts on world-class products from JBL, HARMAN Kardon, AKG, and more.
• Extensive training opportunities through HARMAN University.
• Competitive wellness benefits.
• Tuition reimbursement.
• The Be Brilliant employee recognition and rewards program.
• An inclusive and diverse work environment that encourages professional and personal development.

An inclusive and diverse work environment that fosters and encourages professional and personal development

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Pay Transparency


$ 134,250 - $ 196,900


Dependent on the position offered, other forms of compensation are also available, such as bonuses or commission.

Pay is based on a wide range of factors, including, without limitation, skill set, experience, training, location, and business need. While the above range is a reasonable estimate of the wage range for this position, please note the disclosed range estimate has not been adjusted for the applicable geographical differential associated with the location where the position may be filled.

Benefits

HARMAN is interested in the health and wellbeing of you and your family and offers a range of benefits designed to support your needs for holistic wellbeing. Benefits and perks may vary depending on the nature of your employment with HARMAN, and may include paid vacation and holidays, paid sick leave, volunteer leave, and paid bonding and care giver leave. Employees may also be eligible to participate in comprehensive medical, dental, and vision plans, fertility support and adoption assistance, Health Savings and Flexible Spending Accounts, retirement savings plan with employer match, short and long term disability coverage, life insurance, and more.

About HARMAN: Where Innovation Unleashes Next-Level Technology

Ever since the 1920s, we've been amplifying the sense of sound. Today, that legacy endures, with integrated technology platforms that make the world smarter, safer, and more connected.


Across automotive, lifestyle, and digital transformation solutions, we create innovative technologies that turn ordinary moments into extraordinary experiences. Our renowned automotive and lifestyle solutions can be found everywhere, from the music we play in our cars and homes to venues that feature today's most sought-after performers, while our digital transformation solutions serve humanity by addressing the world's ever-evolving needs and demands. Marketing our award-winning portfolio under 16 iconic brands, such as JBL, Mark Levinson, and Revel, we set ourselves apart by exceeding the highest engineering and design standards for our customers, our partners and each other.


If you're ready to innovate and do work that makes a lasting impact, join our talent community today!


Important Notice: Recruitment Scams

Please be aware that HARMAN recruiters will always communicate with you from an '@harman.com', '@careers.harman.com' or '@harmanglobal.avature.net' email address. We will never ask for payments, banking, credit card, personal financial information or access to your LinkedIn/email account during the screening, interview, or recruitment process. If you are asked for such information or receive communication from an email address not ending in one of the above email domains about a job with HARMAN, please cease communication immediately and report the incident to us through: View email address on click.appcast.io.


You Belong Here

HARMAN is committed to making every employee feel welcomed, valued, and empowered. No matter what role you play, we encourage you to share your ideas, voice your distinct perspective, and bring your whole self with you - all within a support-minded culture that celebrates what makes each of us unique. We also recognize that learning is a lifelong pursuit and want you to flourish. We proudly offer added opportunities for training, development, and continuing education, further empowering you to live the career you want.


HARMAN is proud to be an Equal Opportunity employer. HARMAN strives to hire the best qualified candidates and is committed to building a workforce representative of the diverse marketplaces and communities of our global colleagues and customers. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, religion, color, national origin, gender (including pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, status as a protected veteran, status as an individual with a disability, or other applicable legally protected characteristics. HARMAN attracts, hires, and develops employees based on merit, qualifications and job-related performance.( )


HARMAN is committed to providing reasonable accommodations to applicants with disabilities. If you need assistance or an accommodation during the application process, please contact us at View email address on click.appcast.io . Requests will be considered on a case-by-case basis in accordance with applicable law.