Data Engineer (Geospatial)

Job title: Data Engineer (Geospatial)

Location: UK Hybrid (minimum working 2 days per week in our London office)

Contract Type: 12-month full-time contract, potential to extend

Salary: £45,000 - £60,000

About us

We are a climate analytics nonprofit established in 2021. We provide system modelling data, software and analysis to support energy transition planning and decision-making. We are grant-funded by the Quadrature Climate Foundation, Google.org, Sequoia Climate Foundation, Bloomberg Philanthropies, European Climate Foundation, among others. Our data, software and analysis is used by developers, financiers, planners and think tanks internationally.

At TransitionZero, we understand that diversity is an essential component of a successful team, whether that be diverse ways of thinking, personal or professional backgrounds and skills. We aim to be the most talented nonprofit in our vertical, spearheading innovative data solutions through our culture of inclusivity and adaptability. Now we are looking for an experienced Research Analyst.

Our people are our greatest asset, and the diverse experience, skills and perspectives individuals bring to our organisation are the driving force of our success. We will therefore consider all qualified applicants in the recruitment process as we welcome all the unique qualities and experiences that make you, you.

About the role

Heavy industry activity contributes around a quarter of global anthropogenic emissions, yet unlike the power sector, data remains sparse and inaccurate. TransitionZero is attempting to address this problem as a member of Climate TRACE, a coalition of non-profits founded by former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, which offers a global, independent inventory of greenhouse gas emissions. We use earth observation methods to estimate productivity and emissions from heavy industry facilities in regions where data is unavailable, untimely or unreliable. TransitionZero has been a core member of Climate TRACE since its inception in 2021, providing emissions estimates for the steel, cement, aluminium, pulp & paper, and chemicals subsectors.

We are looking for a Data Engineer to develop our remote sensing tooling, as well as assist with an exciting new project exploring potential pathways to reduce steel industry emissions using an open-source energy system modelling package. You will design, develop, maintain, test and optimise scalable data pipelines to populate our Data Warehouse with model data. As you will be working closely with remote sensing data and pipelines, prior experience of geospatial technologies is highly beneficial, in addition to cloud-based architecture (our tools are deployed in GCP) and github version control. You will work with data across all of the listed sectors, with a particular focus on steel and cement.

About you

You are a Python-based data engineer with a particular interest in geospatial data/tooling and a passion for the energy transition. You are interested in using your development skills to design and build an infrastructure to improve global heavy industry data. You are curious and open to learning domain knowledge about heavy industry subsectors and the wider energy system. You take a collaborative approach to your work, make time for others, and promote a no-blame culture when things break. You take pride in writing clean, well-tested code, and documenting and sharing your work with others. You are interested in continued learning and growth, are open to asking questions, and will bring your ideas to our company.

We welcome people with a proven ability to juggle multiple projects at a time and to collaborate across teams, some of whom are based outside of the UK.

While we are a rapidly growing tech startup, we are also a non-profit, so a high level of adaptability and willingness to approach challenges with creativity and curiosity is essential.

Skills and Experience

Essential

• Interest in geospatial data, processing packages and software
• Degree-level qualifications in software engineering or STEM field (or equivalent professional experience), with up to 3 years of software development experience
• Experience with Python-based development including scripting, data retrieval, and data manipulation (Pandas, Numpy, etc.)
• Experience with SQL (for interacting with our Data Warehouse in BigQuery)
• Experience with containerisation (e.g. Docker) and pipeline orchestration (e.g. Airflow, GCP Batch/Jobs)
• Experience with Github-based version control
• Attention to detail for writing clean, well-documented, well-tested code
• Collaborative team player with good communication skills (we work in Agile)
• Proactivity and ability to self-organise and think outside the box
• An interest in sustainability and a desire to work in a start-up environment

We’d love to see

• Experience using GIS or other geospatial data, processing packages and software
• Domain-relevant knowledge, postgraduate education, and/or experience, e.g. energy systems engineering, earth observation, environmental science, meteorology, climate science, material science, mining, industry decarbonisation
• Experience with CloudOps, serverless deployment, and continuous integration/deployment
• Data modelling, data architecture, schema design
• Experience using Google Cloud Platform (e.g. BigQuery, DataFlow, CloudBuild, CloudRun)
• Experience with scientific computing (e.g. machine learning, numerical optimisation)

Studies have shown that some people from marginalised or underrepresented groups are less likely to apply to a role unless they meet all of the hiring guidelines or qualifications. Whoever you are, even if you don't meet all of the criteria, if you can demonstrate a variety of skills and experience relevant to this role, we encourage you to apply as you might just be the candidate we hire! At TransitionZero, we're looking for people who are genuinely passionate about what they do, and we welcome all people, regardless of their background.

If you would like to discuss any reasonable adjustments to the application or hiring process that may better facilitate your participation, please contact our People team (hiring@transitionzero.org) for an informal chat. We will make every effort to respond to your request for assistance as soon as possible.

Salary and Benefits

• Competitive salary based on experience
• Enhanced pension scheme (5% employer contribution)
• 25 days annual leave (excluding UK public holidays) and an additional day off on your birthday
• 20 days annual allowance to work from anywhere in the world
• Hybrid working and core working hours model
• Allowance to set up your home office
• Annual budget and dedicated leave time for relevant training courses
• Enhanced gender-neutral parental leave (4 months full paid)
• Private healthcare following successful completion of the probation period
• Yearly team offsite