Senior Solutions Architect – Manufacturing & Industrial Automation

Cerence Inc.$138K — $221K *
US-AnywhereRemote in United States
Manufacturing & Automotive
8 - 10 years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Software, Industrial/Automation/Controls Engineering, or related field or equivalent experience.
  • 8+ years in solutions engineering or technical pre-sales with customer-facing technical ownership.
  • Hands-on understanding of the manufacturing and industrial automation stack, including OT controls and operational layers.
  • Knowledge of frontline hardware and voice integration in rugged devices and wearables.
  • Proven ability to lead technical evaluations and post-sales hand-off.
  • Excellent communication skills with ability to engage various levels of stakeholders.
  • Authorized to work in the country of hire without employer sponsorship.

Responsibilities

  • Engage senior technical decision-makers across the manufacturing and industrial automation ecosystem.
  • Own the technical core of opportunities, understanding how AI and voice fit within customer hardware.
  • Clear technical roadblocks, translating evaluations into signed commitments.
  • Collaborate with sales, product, and services to guide business strategies based on field insights.
  • Shape the product by providing real-world feedback on customer requirements and integration needs.

Benefits

  • Generous compensation and benefits package including health and insurance coverage.
  • Annual bonus opportunities based on performance.
  • Paid time off and holidays to promote work-life balance.
  • Company contributions to retirement savings plans.
  • Equity awards available for certain positions.
Full Job Description
A Moving Experience.

Senior Solutions Architect – Manufacturing & Industrial Automation

Your Impact

  • Engage senior technical decision-makers across the manufacturing and industrial automation ecosystem — rugged device, wearable, and headset makers; connected-worker, MES/MOM, and EAM/CMMS platforms; voice-picking and WMS vendors; and SCADA/HMI and PLM software leaders — from startups to established global names.
  • Own the technical core of every opportunity: understand how our hybrid agentic Voice AI and embedded voice run on the customer’s hardware, edge silicon, or platform, design how it fits, and work through the hard questions that keep a deal moving.
  • Clear the technical roadblocks between interest and a signed deal, turning eval kits, PoCs, and proofs-of-value into commitments.
  • Work hand in hand with sales, product, and professional services, translating what you learn in the field into how we sell, deliver, and build.
  • Shape the product itself, feeding real customer hardware, plant-floor acoustics, and integration requirements back into what we build next.

Why Join the Team

  • You get in early on a market about to scale, and help define how voice AI for the industrial frontline is won.
  • This is a new business, so you help shape the solution itself. How it works in the real world, on real customer hardware and plant-floor systems, is still being defined, in large part by you.
  • You bring the autonomy of a start-up and the credibility of an established company to every conversation, with the capital, customer relationships, technology, and brand behind you.
  • Decisions come fast, obstacles get cleared, and you hold real authority over your part of the business.
  • Your impact is rewarded directly, with real financial upside tied to the deals you support.

What You Bring

  • Genuinely curious about how things work — you enjoy going deep with engineering teams and translating the hard parts into something a customer can act on.
  • A natural collaborator who works closely with sales, product, and professional services, with the ambition to take on more ownership and get closer to the customer.
  • A builder’s mindset — comfortable with ambiguity and a fast-moving, new-business environment where the solution is still being shaped, in large part by you.

Minimum Qualifications

  • Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Software, Industrial/Automation/Controls Engineering, or a related technical field, or equivalent practical experience.
  • 8+ years in solutions or sales engineering, technical pre-sales, systems integration, or hands-on development, including customer-facing technical ownership of evaluations and PoCs.
  • Hands-on understanding of the manufacturing and industrial automation stack — the OT/controls layer (PLC, SCADA/HMI, historians, OPC UA, MQTT), the operations layer (MES/MOM, ERP, PLM, EAM/CMMS, WMS), and the reference models and standards that govern it (ISA-95/ISA-88, Industry 4.0, Unified Namespace) — and of hybrid edge/cloud architectures, on-device and embedded systems, and offline-first deployment.
  • Working knowledge of the underlying frontline hardware and where voice runs on it — rugged handhelds and wearables, industrial headsets and AR/assisted-reality glasses, and edge/on-device compute and AI-ready silicon (SoCs/NPUs).
  • Proven ability to lead technical evaluations, PoCs, and proof-of-value engagements from discovery through onboarding and post-sales hand-off.
  • Excellent customer-facing communication, able to engage both shop-floor engineers and senior or executive stakeholders.
  • Authorized to work in the country of hire without current or future employer sponsorship.

Preferred Qualifications

  • Advanced degree (MS/PhD) in a relevant engineering or computer science discipline.
  • Hands-on experience with one or more leading MES/MOM or EAM platforms (e.g., Siemens Opcenter, Rockwell FactoryTalk/Plex, AVEVA, PTC, IBM Maximo, Tulip) and industrial protocols (OPC UA, MQTT, Unified Namespace).
  • Experience with voice, conversational, or speech AI; on-device/edge SLMs; and audio front-end or microphone-array integration.
  • Familiarity with OT/industrial cybersecurity and functional-safety standards (IEC 62443, zero-trust/defense-in-depth).
  • Experience delivering solutions in regulated or high-noise environments (e.g., pharma/GxP, process industries, warehousing and logistics).
  • Multilingual capability for global customer engagements.
  • Familiarity with Microsoft and NVIDIA partner ecosystem and motions.

Location & Travel

  • Location: Remote — United States, Canada.
  • Travel: approximately 30% to customer sites.

What we offer

  • We offer a generous compensation and benefits package (in addition to the base salary), including: 

  • Salary range $138,500.00 USD- $221,600.00USD Itis 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. 

  • Annual bonus opportunity 

  • Insurance coverage (medical, dental, vision, life, and disability) 

  • Paid time off 

  • Paid holidays 

  • Company contribution to the RRSP (Registered Retirement Savings Plan) 

  • Equity awards for certain positions and levels 

  • Remote and/or hybrid work available depending on the positionAll 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.

About Cerence Inc.

Cerence Inc. is a software company that specializes in voice recognition and natural language understanding technology. The company was spun off from Nuance Communications in 2019 and is headquartered in Newton, Massachusetts. Cerence's software is used in a variety of applications, including automotive infotainment systems, smart speakers, and virtual assistants. The company's clients include many of the world's leading automakers, as well as companies in the consumer electronics and mobile device industries. Cerence has received several awards for its technology, including the 2020 CES Innovation Award for its Cerence Drive platform.
Learn more about Cerence Inc.
Size
1,200 employees
Market Cap
$726.1 million
Industry
Net Income
$12.7 million
5 Year Trend
+6%
Revenue
$347.1 million

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