He is a senior lecturer in the Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology at the Australian National University.
He is the managing director of Software Improvements Pty Ltd. Before completing his BSc Boughton undertook both research (at ARRB Group Ltd.) and industrial practice (at USL as Lab Manager) concerning the physical properties of soils.
After completing his BSc he became a professional officer at the department of physics at Monash University in Melbourne where did research into the specific heat of superconducting alloys.
He published a research paper on the Fe(3-x)Mn(x)Si category of superconducting compounds/alloys as a result of his work at Monash.
Boughton was a contributor to the establishment of the BS Eng degree program within Department of Computer Science/Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology.