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Rainmaker Fellow, Satellite Remote Sensing

Rainmaker· R&D
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El Segundo, CA$8k/moFull-timePosted 2mo ago

About the role

Paid, full-time research fellowship in satellite remote sensing for exceptional early-career researchers, with a scoped project and close mentorship in Rainmaker’s satellite remote-sensing group.

Responsibilities

  • Acquire, process, collocate, and quality-control microwave, polar-orbiting, and geostationary satellite observations.
  • Reproduce an existing retrieval or operational baseline before testing improvements.
  • Validate satellite products against radar, NWP, soundings, surface observations, and Rainmaker aircraft, UAS, or in-situ measurements.
  • Quantify detection skill, bias, uncertainty, spatial representativeness, latency, coverage, and failure modes by meteorological regime.
  • Implement physically motivated, statistical, or ML retrieval improvements when justified by the project and data.
  • Build documented, reproducible workflows that other Rainmaker scientists can run and extend.
  • Present findings to satellite scientists, radar scientists, meteorologists, operators, and technical leadership.
  • Deliver a final artifact such as a collocation dataset, retrieval benchmark, automated data product, error analysis, fusion prototype, or research paper.

Qualifications

  • Current undergraduate, master's, or PhD students; postdoctoral researchers; recent graduates; and other early-career researchers are all eligible.
  • Strong quantitative and programming ability, preferably in Python.
  • Experience with atmospheric remote sensing, satellite meteorology, physics, applied mathematics, electrical engineering, computer science, or a related field.
  • Interest in microwave sounders, polar-orbiting observations, geostationary imagery, retrieval methods, or scientific data products.
  • Ability to implement a scientific method, establish a baseline, and validate the result carefully.
  • Comfort working with large, imperfect, multidimensional observational datasets.
  • High agency and the ability to take responsibility for a bounded workstream while collaborating with experienced researchers.
  • Clear written and verbal communication.
  • Availability for full-time, on-site work in El Segundo for the agreed appointment.

Skills

Required:PythonAtmospheric remote sensing

Benefits

  • Full health coverage (medical, dental, and vision insurance)
  • Lunch provided when working in-office and a fully stocked kitchenette
  • Free EV charging at the HQ
Last updated Oct 23, 2026. Interested? Apply on the company site.
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