Roles and responsibilities

We’re looking for a flexible generalist whose core competence is being on top of the details. Day to day, your job is to make sure the company runs as smoothly as possible, be that doing the paperwork for new hires, working with our bookkeeper on payroll, or keeping the lights on in our offices (both figuratively and literally). Specific responsibilities include:

• General HR administration (e.g. putting together paperwork for new hires, managing our benefits packages)
• Managing contract execution, establishing realistic timelines with customers and proactively ensuring the rest of the WindBorne team is fulfilling requirements
• Maintaining relationships with key external stakeholders (e.g. running update meetings with our government customers, giving them tours when they visit, etc.)
• Working closely with bookkeepers, lawyers, and accountants to ensure they can do their jobs effectively
• Monitor company cash flow and other finances, and flag issues to the CEO (e.g. a major payment being delayed)
• Maintaining compliance with local, state, and federal regulations (e.g. registering us to store more compressed gas at our workspace, keeping legally required signage about labor laws up to date, etc.)
• Overseeing upgrades to our offices (e.g., specing out a mission control room) as well as general workspace management
• Establishing systems for and managing compliance with US Department of Defense information security requirements
• Supporting the CEO in handling the inevitable unexpected tasks (a recent example: the Silicon Valley Bank debacle)

Skills and Qualifications

Required

• 2+ years of experience in a relevant field, eg grant writing, government relations, business development, or sales
• Scrappiness
• A love of lists and a refusal to let things slip through the cracks
• Incessant desire to proactively make things better
• High level of proficiency with Google Suite (docs, slides, sheets, gmail, calendar), with a particular focus on spreadsheets
• Experience working within a Digital HQ chat platform, e.g. Slack
• Exemplary organizational skills

Nice to have

• Rudimentary python or equivalent skills for basic data analysis and manipulation
• Experience in an early-stage startup
• Strong presentation skills
• U.S. citizenship

Roles and responsibilities

• Manage relationships with government and commercial contacts and expand existing contracts
• Run outreach campaigns and lead generation processes
• Convert leads to contracts
• Work with other team members to develop grant applications and other communication materials as necessary
• Develop a deep understanding of WindBorne’s technology and how it can be applied to solve various government and commercial challenges
• Attend domestic and international trade shows and conferences, running demos and presenting WindBorne’s technology
• Work with business operations ensure contracts are executed smoothly
• Work with business operations to ensure contracts are executed smoothly
• Work closely with founding team on commercial go-to-market strategy and product scoping

Skills and Qualifications

Required

• 4+ years of experience within the weather industry
• Experience selling Software-as-a-Service products
• High level of proficiency with Google Suite (docs, slides, sheets, gmail, calendar)
• Strong writing and communication skills, including the ability to talk about deeply technical concepts to both technical and nontechnical customer audiences
• Enough scientific & engineering knowledge to understand how our technology works and impacts weather forecasting
• Willingness to operate in a fast-paced environment and make tradeoffs between quantity and quality of work
• Experience working within a Digital HQ chat platform, e.g. Slack
• Strong organizational skills and attention to detail
• Persistence and dedication when following up with external parties

Nice to have

• Familiarity with government procurement processes
• Experience selling weather-related products or services to government agencies
• Experience demoing technical products

Roles and responsibilities

• Work on automated custom calibration processes as we scale from hundreds to tens of thousands of balloons while maintaining stringent meteorological accuracy standards
• Characterize and investigate errors of the system, which can be introduced anywhere in the process from calibration to flight, and write scripts to monitor quality as we scale up
• Improve and maintain software for processing real-time meteorological data, with automated quality control and rejection of bad data, as well as bias correction
• Think about potential hardware improvements to sensing mechanisms and calibration rigs to improve throughput and/or data quality, and collaborate with other engineers to implement these changes
• Develop and implement new test equipment for better performance characterization of sensor hardware to guide design iteration
• Investigate and prototype new types of sensors to add to the platform

Skills and Qualifications

Required

• Bachelor's or higher degree in a STEM field
• Experience applying statistics, fitting, and optimization
• Experience with processing large datasets
• Experience interfacing with sensor hardware and characterizing new data sources
• Standard Python scientific toolbox (Numpy, Scipy, Matplotlib, etc.), Python scripting.
• Familiarity with the basic underlying physics in common sensors
• Familiarity with the Linux command line, bash, etc.
• Familiarity with C and C++
• High level of proficiency with Google Suite (docs, slides, sheets, gmail, calendar)
• Experience working within a Digital HQ chat platform, e.g. Slack
• High attention to detail to catch issues and concerns before they compromise the accuracy of our data

Nice to have

• Firmware and electrical prototyping (low level C, PCB design, soldering, etc.)
• Mechanical prototyping (CAD, 3D printing, basic machining, etc.)
• Software development experience in a team setting
• PhD in experimental physics or electrical engineering

Roles and responsibilities

• Improve on existing balloon launch support equipment to enable reliable launches in a wide range of weather conditions by a single trained operator
• Work closely with the R&D team to ensure flight hardware and launch equipment are co-designed to operate effectively
• Assemble and maintain launch equipment for use around the world
• Work with the logistics team and launch contractors to ensure ease of shipping and site setup, and reliable operations in the field
• Assist in developing training materials and checklists for launch contractors
• Perform R&D on on-site gas generation systems to ease logistics in highly remote locations
• Develop systems and operational concepts to automate aspects of the launch process
• Support flight hardware R&D

Skills and Qualifications

Required

• 3+ years of mechanical engineering experience
• Experience taking projects through all stages from initial concept through design, assembly, and test
• Proficiency in CAD (Solidworks preferred)
• Experience designing for 3D printing, laser cutting, and manual machining
• Strong hands-on experience
• Proficiency with basic machining tools (drill press, saws, hand-tools, etc.)
• Experience working within a Digital HQ chat platform, e.g. Slack
• Willingness to travel occasionally
• Strong preference for creative but mechanically simple designs over feature-rich and complex ones

Nice to have

• Experience with compressed gas systems
• Electronics skills (soldering, use of test equipment, board design)
• Familiarity with designing systems for all-weather operation

Roles and responsibilities

• Track failure rates and determine types of failures of incoming PCBAs and mechanical assemblies
• Identify manufacturing issues with boards and assemblies, and provide suggestions to improve manufacturability
• Respond to failures on the production line. Troubleshoot and determine if further mechanical, electrical, or firmware engineering assistance is required.
• Implement new procedures and set up manufacturing stations
• Update test fixtures when required
• Inspect units returned from the field. Assess potential trends that range from shipping defects through launch failures
• Place orders for new boards and assist with IC supply chain management

Skills and Qualifications

Required

• Bachelor’s degree or higher in Electrical Engineering or related discipline
• 2+ years experience in an electronics manufacturing environment
• Hands-on experience troubleshooting circuit boards and electronic assemblies
• Familiarity with standard electronic test equipment (multimeter, oscilloscope, power supply, etc.)
• Ability to understand electro-mechanical system design and functionality
• Basic understanding of electrical schematics
• Basic proficiency with Linux
• Familiarity with surface-mount soldering
• Strong communication skills
• Extreme attention to detail
• Experience working within a Digital HQ chat platform, e.g. Slack

Nice to have

• Manufacturing experience (QC, Design for Manufacturability, etc.)
• Experience with transitioning hardware from prototype to production
• Exposure to IC supply chain management
• Familiarity with PCB and PCBA manufacturing processes
• Experience with Altium
• Experience with mechanical CAD and 3D modeling, preferably SolidWorks

Roles and responsibilities

• Develop and implement state-of-the-art algorithms for autonomous flight control, navigation, and decision-making for our smart weather balloons
• Collaborate with other engineers including hardware, software, and data analytics to design and optimize the overall system performance
• Test and validate autonomous flight algorithms through simulation, ground testing, and in-flight experiments
• Manage the software that runs the algorithms you develop with standard software engineering practices
• Maintain up-to-date knowledge of relevant research, industry trends, and state-of-the-art techniques

For more information on the technical problems to be solved by this role, reach out.

Skills and Qualifications

Required

• Bachelor's, Master's, or Ph.D. in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, Robotics, or a related field
• Strong experience and proficiency with C++ and Python
• Strong experience with Stochastic Gradient Descent based methods
• Strong background and understanding in the math at the foundation of machine learning and control theory, such as linear algebra, statistics, and vector calculus
• Good understanding of how to efficiently leverage high performance compute
• Ability and willingness to get hands dirty in low level software
• A strong preference for a software engineering oriented languages like Python or Julia over MATLAB & Simulink
• Scrappiness

Nice to have

• Experience with Convex Optimization
• Experience with Python <> C++ interfaces
• Familiarity with Clang and LLVM
• Experience writing software in a team setting
• Basic Ruby

Roles and responsibilities

• Fly WindBorne’s constellation of weather balloons using an in-house developed suite of software management tools
• Provide short-term weather forecasts to plan launch times
• Collaborate with engineering staff to track and isolate issues that are impacting flights
• Provide suggestions for improvements to the flight software that will lead to better constellation management
• Notify government agencies, including the FAA and aircraft Hurricane Hunter teams, of balloon launches and flight paths
• Conduct balloon launches when needed to support operations
• Remotely audit and support staff launching balloons at our global launch locations
• Monitor collected weather data to assure it meets quality standards
• Manage remote launch site resource levels and work cross functionally to avoid gaps in operations

Skills and Qualifications

Required

• Bachelor’s degree in Atmospheric Science, Meteorology, or a related field
• General weather forecasting skills
• Strong understanding of meteorological observations, weather radar and satellite and numerical weather models
• Digital native who’s willing to learn complex software tools
• Exceptional telephone, verbal and interpersonal communication skills
• Ability to adjust priorities based on changing conditions in a time-constrained operational environment
• Ability to work shifts outside of normal business hours
• Scrappiness

Nice to have

• Experience with analysis of meteorological data using Python
• Linux usage and administration
• Computer hardware setup

Roles and responsibilities

• Own the discovery phase for our new forecast product, brainstorming featuresets and refining them with customers
• Augment existing market research with additional customer conversations to support product ideation
• Translate findings from product discovery into specifications for engineering, including providing insights into priority and design
• Work with senior leadership to establish product roadmap & timelines
• Support business team in refining go-to-market strategy
• Support feature planning in existing product lines
• Identify and address product risks and challenges
• Stay up-to-date on competitor’s offerings

Skills and Qualifications

Required

• 3+ years experience in a product management role
• Experience conducting product discovery for a complex software product
• High level of proficiency with prototyping tools like Figma
• High level of proficiency with Google Suite
• Experience working within a Digital HQ chat platform, e.g. Slack
• Strong organizational skills
• A love of talking to customers & understanding their needs

Nice to have

• Background in design
• Experience in the weather industry
• Experience in an early-stage startup
• Experience conducting user testing

Roles and responsibilities

• Own execution of communications and marketing strategy
• Communicate our climate mission the broader world, explaining both our ability to dramatically reduce global emissions and help on the adaptation side
• Explain WindBorne’s technological advances to reinforce our positioning as the most innovative player in the weather space
• Work with founders to develop messaging in greater detail
• Ensure messaging consistency across our website, social media, marketing campaigns, publications, etc.
• Generate a steady cadence of media coverage, running the process from press releases through to publication
• Scope and manage our social media presence
• Develop content aimed at potential hires such as blogs and video
• Create general marketing collateral for trade shows and other events

Skills and Qualifications

Required

• 2+ years experience in an communications position
• Experience making and managing contacts within the media
• Sufficient knowledge & scientific background to understand a deeply technical product and communicate it to the general public
• Experience working within a Digital HQ chat platform, e.g. Slack
• Excellent writing
• An eye for good design

Nice to have

• Startup experience, ideally in deep tech or climate
• Design skill & experience with tools such as Figma
• Experience in video creation

Roles and responsibilities

• Building intricate assemblies to integrate into a balloon payload
• Electrically and mechanically testing parts throughout the assembly process
• Soldering onto delicate PCBs
• Working with chemicals
• Working on processes where high attention to detail is required
• Working in a highly variable environment with improvements being implemented often
• Training new technicians as team grows
• Meeting weekly quotas for your part of the manufacturing process
• Using proprietary software test and track manufacturing progress

Skills and Qualifications

Required

• Excellent hand dexterity
• Familiarity with hand and power tools
• Excellent organizational skills with attention to detail and process
• Comfortable working with small and delicate materials
• Ability to follow written instructions provided by the manufacturer to build final product
• Ability to manage time effectively in order to finish tasks needing completion in a timely manner
• Ability to work with others in a friendly and professional manner in a highly collaborative environment
• Ability to adapt to new procedures
• Comfortable working in a fast paced environment where priorities can change quickly
• Able to work during operating hours of 9am-5pm, M-F at Palo Alto, CA location

Nice to have

• Previous soldering experience
• Experience working in a clean room environment
• Experience manufacturing small electronics
• Familiarity with Linux
• Experience in working on a small team/startup environment