Data Scientist, Agriculture or Geospatial

Carbon removal is a mass transfer problem. We need to create an entirely new industry capable of removing tens of billions of tons of CO2 — the same order of magnitude as humanity’s entire global production of food, or concrete, and to do all this within the next decade. 

Our bet: the best chance of success is by leveraging three industries already capable of this scale: agriculture 🚜, mining 🪨, and transportation 🚚. But just having the physical and human infrastructure is not enough.

As a Data Scientist at Lithos, you will process, analyze, and visualize field results from some of the first and largest commercial trials of enhanced rock weathering in the world. Prior academic research in ERW was conducted in small plots and with a primary focus on the geochemical perspective. As the field scales, it will be critical to understand its impact in a large-scale production agriculture context, including the specific practices and challenges of working with commercial data.

Examples of key areas this role will own:

• Meta-analysis of trends, similarities, and quirks from results across different farms and regions, including integration of 3rd-party geospatial and remote sensing data
• Quantifying changes in soil chemistry across varied and heterogeneous agricultural soils
• Processing and analyzing yield data from combine-mounted yield monitors
• Execute throughout the full data development cycle: from initial exploratory data analysis and R&D on raw data, to collaborating with our engineering team on schema improvements and pipeline maintenance, to developing and delivering dashboards, reporting, and future production models

About Lithos

Lithos Carbon revolutionizes the carbon capture industry through enhanced rock weathering technology. We work with farmers to spread basalt rock on farmland, which increases soil health and repurposes post-industrial waste. Our technology is aimed at removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere at a fraction of the cost of other methods, while helping farmers improve crop yields. Our team is made up of industry-leading academic scientists and proven entrepreneurs, and we are backed by top-tier investors like Union Square Ventures and Greylock Partners. We started commercializing the technology in 2022 and already signed customers for our permanent carbon removal credits including Stripe, Alphabet, Shopify, and McKinsey’s Frontier program. You can read about our work in FastCompany, Axios, and on our blog.

Requirements

You might thrive in this role if:

• You have senior level experience in data science and applied statistics within a commercial setting.
• You have a strong quantitative/statistical background. You know the ins-and-outs of statistical modeling and likely have personal opinions on frequentist and Bayesian inference.
• You have experience across the full data development cycle, from sourcing, cleaning, and EDA of raw data through reporting, visualization, and interpretation of final results.
• You have strong coding skills, including scientific, machine learning, and geospatial libraries (e.g. Python, numpy, geopandas, SKlearn; R, tidyverse, tidymodels, terra; Julia) and data querying/pipelines (SQL, ETL)
• You have excellent communication skills and are comfortable operating in a highly ambiguous environment. You’re capable of operating independently and are able to scope your work and collaborate with both internal and external stakeholders to achieve business goals without tight supervision.

Key domain areas:

We don't expect candidates to have experience in all the topics below, but they reflect areas you will be working in. We're lifelong learners at Lithos: success here means the ability and enthusiasm to acquire deep expertise in new areas.

• Soil chemistry and soil surveys: common practices in commercial sampling and laboratory measurement
• Geospatial data and GIS (e.g. platforms like Mapbox, QGIS, and PostGIS; GPS data capture software/hardware)
• Commercial agriculture: farm machinery + operations, nutrient management, cropping, and tillage practices
• Farm management software (FMS/FMIS) like John Deere Operations Center, Trimble Ag, or Ag Leader SMS
• Physical/laboratory measurement workflows (LIMS) and handling data with uncertainty

Benefits

• Competitive salary and meaningful equity compensation
• Comprehensive health coverage including medical, dental, and vision
• Access to our 401k plan
• Unlimited PTO and sick days

Lithos provides equal employment opportunities (EEO) to all employees and applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability, genetics, sexual orientation, gender identity/expression, marital status, pregnancy or related condition, or any other basis protected by law.

To apply, follow the link to complete the application and we will be in touch within 5-7 business days.