Senior Geospatial Engineer

Company Description Cloudseed Inc is dedicated to solving the problem of global food and water security through the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and other emerging technologies. Our mission is to develop tools for consumers and the food industry to accelerate adaptation of land and water practices for a changing climate. Cloudseed Inc is a bootstrapped company. Co-Founders are unpaid during this growth phase. We do this because we think we have a compelling product and we want to help the planet. THIS IS AN EQUITY COMPENSATION ROLE on a Contract Basis. You would be joining the co-founders and the initial founding engineering team of Cloudseed Inc. The position is un-salaried while Cloudseed Inc is raising capital and establishing revenue. Equity is negotiable based on experience and fit. Ideally you are an engineer with extra time minimum 15 hours / week ideally 20 - 40 to devote to a startup in the beginning with the expectation that you'll join full time when the company is funded - equity package will be structured accordingly. We offer an accelerated vesting schedule and a % of company ownership. Key Responsibilities • Ingest & engineer spatial data: Acquire, QA/QC, and normalize climate/weather, land, and agronomic datasets; handle large rasters/vectors, tiling/mosaics, pyramids, COGs/Zarr, and STAC catalogs. • Build scalable spatial pipelines: Use Python + xarray/GeoPandas/rasterio/rioxarray/shapely/pyproj + Dask to process multi-TB rasters and time series (e.g., DAYMET, PRISM, CMIP6). Persist curated layers to PostgreSQL/PostGIS, Geoparquet, and Zarr. • Modeling & analytics: Develop and validate spatial models (e.g., crop suitability, water/heat indices, time-series features, spatial stats/kriging where appropriate). • Productionize your work (light backend): Wrap key pipeline steps behind simple FastAPI endpoints or batch jobs; containerize with Docker; orchestrate data pipelines; publish data to S3 and PostGIS. • Performance & reliability: Profile raster ops, choose chunking/layouts, optimize PostGIS queries, add tests/CI for critical transforms, and document data lineage/assumptions. • Partner across product: Translate agronomy/climate requirements into concrete spatial features and deliverables that product and engineering can consume. Required Skills • Geospatial Python (expert): 5+ years with GeoPandas, rasterio/rioxarray, shapely/pyproj/PROJ/GDAL; strong command of projections, reprojection, resampling, and topology. • Large-scale processing: Hands-on with Dask for chunked arrays/time series; comfortable optimizing chunking, memory, and I/O for multi-TB workflows. • Datastores: PostgreSQL/PostGIS (indexes, ST\_ • functions, query tuning), plus file/object formats like COG, Zarr, Parquet. • Data science/ML: Solid stats and machine learning knowledge, feature engineering for spatial/temporal data, validation, and error analysis. • Light backend skills: Python packaging, FastAPI basics for data services, Docker, and CI (GitHub Actions). • Cloud literacy: Working knowledge of AWS S3 and one of Batch/ECS/Lambda/Step Functions for batchy pipelines. • Communication & ownership: You can scope work with minimal guidance, write crisp docs, and make pragmatic trade-offs. Preferred Qualifications • Climate/ag datasets (e.g., ET, GDD, SPEI), remote sensing (Sentinel/Landsat) • Building thin RAG/LLM utilities to summarize data docs (not a core requirement). • Familiarity with Terraform/IaC (light). What You'll Learn • Agricultural domain expertise and crop modeling algorithms • Large-scale geospatial data processing techniques • AI/ML applications in agriculture and conversational interfaces • Production scientific computing and optimization strategies • Startup culture and growth strategy and emphasis navigating an environment of pivots with an emphasis on cash flow and technical leadership opportunities Level: Senior (4-7 years experience) - High impact role with growth potential as we scale our platform and team. Cloudseed is an Equal Opportunity employer committed to diversity in the workplace. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, age, national origin, disability, protected veteran status, gender identity or any other factor protected by applicable federal state or local laws. Cloudseed is also committed to working with and providing reasonable accommodations to individuals with disabilities. Privacy is a top priority for Cloudseed. We build it into our products and view it as an essential part of our business.