Top Science Jobs

Schmidt Futures is a philanthropic initiative, founded by Eric and Wendy Schmidt, that bets early on exceptional people making the world better.  We knit talent into networks, bet on the most promising ideas through diverse forms of competition and support, and equip people to scale through partners and modern tools. To realize this vision, Schmidt Futures uses a broad set of tools — including gifts, grants, investments, and startup activity — for charitable, educational, and commercial efforts with a public purpose. Our initiative brings together the efforts of various charitable and non-charitable entities to improve our potential impact by making diverse types of capital available to the efforts we support.

AI2050 is an initiative that supports exceptional people working on key opportunities and hard problems that are critical to get right for society to benefit from AI. These awards will primarily aim to enable and encourage these AI2050 Fellows to undertake bold and ambitious work, often multi-disciplinary, that is typically hard to fund but critical to get right for society to benefit from AI. For more information, see the AI2050 website.

Reporting to the Executive Director of AI2050, the Program Scientist will help lead the scientific and technical aspects of AI2050. 

The Program Scientist will focus on:

• Serving as an expert advisor on all aspects of artificial intelligence for Schmidt Futures, and guaranteeing the technical excellence of AI2050. 
• Supporting due diligence of grant proposals from academic researchers, nonprofits, and other AI organizations 
• Designing performance metrics for the fellowships to ensure effective tracking towards annual goals.
• Fostering partnerships with the AI community, including universities, companies, research institutions, and philanthropic organizations, in support of Schmidt Futures goals.
• Identifying grants or other investment opportunities for Schmidt Futures that are consistent with the approved program goals and approach, drawing on an extensive network in scientific and academic circles.
• Participating in relevant industry or academic conferences and events, representing the program’s and Schmidt Futures’ presence on AI topics.
• Working closely with leadership at Schmidt Futures responsible for delivery for all programs to ensure that our efforts meet or exceed their objectives.
• Exploring new avenues to shape the broader AI2050 strategy.

• Technical expertise in the latest large language models (LLMs). 
• Expert-level knowledge of at least one, and preferably multiple fields related to the Hard Problems in AI. 
• Experience producing technical / scientific writing for expert and general audiences. 
• Deep relationships in the AI community and experience working with AI-focused institutions. 
• Ability to critically analyze and assess grant proposals and other investment opportunities for scientific and technical excellence.
• Demonstrated ability to develop research partnerships and to lead such efforts end-to-end.
• General scientific and technical expertise that goes beyond areas of established credentials and degrees.
• Public profile and extensive network in the sciences that will allow Schmidt Futures to continue to build on our reputation in this area.

• Have a PhD from an accredited institution, focused on artificial intelligence, computer science, data science, math, or some other relevant field.
• Have at least 3 years of work experience following the PhD in academia, business, government, or philanthropy.
• Have a demonstrated track record of research in artificial intelligence including publications as well as applying for and obtaining scientific research grants.
• Have demonstrated ability to collaborate and a record of impact in high-intensity, team-based environments.
• Have the highest integrity and ability to maintain confidentiality.

Futures Action Network, LLC, which operates Schmidt Futures, is an Equal Employment Opportunity employer that proudly pursues and hires a diverse workforce. We do not make hiring or employment decisions on the basis of race, color, religion or religious belief, ethnic or national origin, nationality, sex, gender, gender-identity, sexual orientation, disability, age, military or veteran status, or any other basis protected by applicable local, state, or federal laws or prohibited by Company policy. We strive for a healthy and safe workplace and strictly prohibit harassment of any kind.

Join us on the journey to get to net zero

At Carbon Direct, we dedicate our scientific, software, and business expertise to empower organizations around the world to take climate action.

Our Mission

Enable organizations to reduce, remove, and utilize their emissions with carbon science

We are a purpose-driven carbon management firm dedicated to helping organizations around the world reach their climate goals. We make carbon science accessible and actionable with our end-to-end platform.

Global citizens with global impact

Whether a scientist, developer, or carbon markets expert, we are united by our mission to take climate action now. We are experts in our fields and we act with confidence. Located across 4 countries and 10+ states in the U.S., we offer both remote-friendly work options and dynamic, in-person experiences with offices located in Seattle, WA and Oakland, CA.

Diverse backgrounds bring diverse perspectives

We recognize that teams with diverse backgrounds and different experiences are powerful. Bringing together a variety of perspectives only enhances how we can effectively address the climate crisis. Together, we are creating an environment where everyone is celebrated and anyone can succeed.

The Role

We are looking for a dynamic, entrepreneurial mid-career data scientist who understands the value of data in tackling the climate problem. The successful candidate will be a team player who can work creatively across carbon science, data science, and software engineering teams. The candidate should be an experienced modeler in the context of real-world environmental, ecological, or other climate/carbon-related topics. We are especially interested in lifelong learners, willing to learn new modeling techniques and work directly with new data types, including tabular data, GIS/remote sensing imagery, and electric grid system data. Strong communication skills and ability to articulate the insights derived from quantitative analysis are critical.

Responsibilities

• Identify and explore key carbon-relevant data sets.
• Preprocess (extract, clean and integrate) carbon-relevant data from multiple sources.
• Build, calibrate, test and maintain analytic models including predictive machine-learning models for a range of climate-relevant applications (classification and regression; supervised and unsupervised).
• Present results using data visualizations and clear verbal explanations.
• Collaborate with the science team to enhance and extend existing quantitative modeling efforts. 
• Collaborate with software engineering and product teams to deploy trained models.

• A PhD or M.S. in a carbon-relevant field (data science, forestry, soil science, engineering, biology, chemistry, physics, math, or other STEM fields) or a bachelor’s degree with extensive demonstrated relevant work experience.
• Multiple years of experience in applied data analysis and machine learning.
• Proficiency with data mining and preprocessing.
• Fluency with GCP, Python, SQL and R. Familiarity with data science and machine learning libraries (e.g., pandas, TensorFlow, PyTorch, scikit-learn) a strong plus.
• Familiarity with data visualization tools and libraries (e.g., Tableau, PowerBI, matplotlib). 
• Strong business-relevant quantitative analysis skills.
• Willingness to learn novel analysis and modeling methods and work with a broad range of data types (tabular, natural language, remote sensing/imagery, power systems, etc).
• Excellent ability to communicate insights from quantitative modeling.
• High aptitude for collaborative, team-based data science work.
• Orientation toward creative and efficient problem solving using data.

Benefits

While we love our work, our lives aren’t defined by it. At Carbon Direct, we offer a robust benefits package that considers the whole person, their partners, and their families – and we’re always looking to improve.

Our U.S. benefits* include:

- Comprehensive nationwide medical, dental, and vision coverage. See a preview of our coverage here.

- Time off as needed: Flexible vacation policy and ten company-wide holidays, plus annual winter break between Christmas and New Year's

- 16 weeks of fully paid parental and family leave with no tenure requirement

- Remote-friendly work culture with annual company-wide retreats

- Reimbursement for your work-from-home setup and monthly work-from-home stipend

*Please note that the benefits described apply to U.S.-based employees only. For our international employees, our benefits package varies by each country and its statutory requirements.

Equal Opportunity Employer

Carbon Direct is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, gender, religion, age, sexual orientation, national or ethnic origin, disability, marital status, veteran status, or any other occupationally irrelevant criteria. We adhere rigorously to our equal employment opportunity policies in connection with all employment decisions, including hiring, compensation and promotion.