Sr. Data Scientist

Company & Mission Overview:

Our mission: We exist to connect climate and financial risk.

Who we are: First Street is the standard for Climate Risk Financial Modeling. For over a decade, we’ve been translating climate risk into decision-useful financial outcomes for investors, businesses, communities, and property owners worldwide. With backing from world-class firms, including Innovation Endeavors, Galvanize, General Catalyst, and others, our team has raised millions to change how the global economy thinks about climate change.

Read more about our culture here and see what Climate Risk Financial Modeling is all about here.

Our data: We’ve assembled leading climate scientists and economists to develop transparent, peer-reviewed methodologies to calculate the past, present, and future climate risk for properties and asset classes spanning real estate, infrastructure, and companies. Using physics-based deterministic models, we predict the likelihood of floods, wildfires, hurricanes, and other hazards at any location on Earth, along with associated damage and downtime.

Our customers: We aim to incorporate climate risk data into every financial decision made today. We are relied on every day by:

• Institutional investors like Norges Bank Investment Management and Blackstone.

• Banking enterprises, including Bank of America and Fifth Third.

• Government bodies ranging from Fannie Mae to the US State of Connecticut.

• Millions of everyday users on Zillow, Redfin, Realtor.com, Homes.com, and more.

Come join us and use your talents to change the world.

Team & Role Overview: We are looking for a Senior Data Scientist with experience working in Earth Science to join our Data Science/Data Engineering team. It's never been more important that finance professionals, homeowners and home buyers understand the monetary impact of climate hazards on their real estate and investments — and you will help make that possible.

The successful candidate deeply cares about the environment, loves information technology, and appreciates the importance of data for the First Street mission. They will develop new peril models and enhance existing ones, lead data operations that span Climate Science, Data Science, and Data Engineering, and enable the broader team to succeed through your expertise and technical leadership.

Have you built machine learning models to calculate the impact of climate change on snow cover in Scandinavia? Have you reformatted terabytes of GRIB model output into a more accessible Zarr store? Do you use AI coding assistants to help write image processing algorithms for extracting building characteristics from satellite imagery? We’d love to hear from you!

What You'll Do:

• Lead acquisition, processing, and analysis of climate-related and geospatial data for First Street modelers and data partners.

• Develop and maintain scalable data pipelines on local and cloud-based systems (AWS preferred).

• Perform statistical analysis to validate hazard model predictions and assess model uncertainties.

• Develop and enhance machine learning models supporting First Street's peril product suite.

• Plan, execute, and direct Unix-based workflows using Python, Bash, GDAL, and related technologies.

• Analyze raster and vector data at scale to improve model accuracy, identify quality control issues, and develop remedies.

• Design and implement quality assurance checks on climate model data and derived statistics.

• Contribute to the broader Data Science and Data Engineering team's success through technical leadership and mentorship.

Requirements:

• Master's Degree + 4 years of experience, or Ph.D. + 2 years of experience (field: Data Science, Earth Science, or related)

• Python — required

• Linux & Bash — required

• Git & source control — required

• Cloud computing — required (AWS strongly preferred)

• Geospatial data and formats: GeoTIFF, NetCDF, GRIB, HDF5, Zarr

• Strong understanding of probability and statistics as applied to spatial data

• Experience with big data analysis, parallel processing, and batch/spot workflows

• Machine learning model development — ideally a model you built yourself, not just contributed to as part of a team

Nice to Have:

• High-performance computing experience (SLURM is a plus)

• Agentic AI applications, with an understanding of the practical benefits and limitations of AI agents

• Experience mentoring junior scientists or engineers

• Background in the physical sciences
  

Our anticipated US base salary compensation range for this role is $100,000-150,000 plus stock options and a competitive benefits package, which includes equity, 401(k), paid time off, paid parental leave, and comprehensive health benefits. Actual compensation will vary depending on factors such as work location as well as additional factors such as a candidate’s qualifications, skills, experience, competencies, and relevant education. Your recruiter can share more about the specific salary range for your location during the hiring process.

How we work:

• Impact: We only focus on things that move the needle

• Drive: We are driven by the role we play in connecting climate change to financial risk

• Ownership: This is our company and we act accordingly

• Urgency: We move quickly because the world depends on it

• Resilience: We have a growth mindset in all that we do

What we offer:

• Competitive salary commensurate with experience

• Ownership interest in the company via Employee Stock Option Plan

• Hybrid Schedule with in-office work days on Monday, Wednesday and Thursday

• 15 vacation days along with 8 statutory company holidays, 5 days for winter break office closure, and 10 sick days

• Healthcare monthly premium covered at 100% for employee or a significant contribution for family plans

• Vision and dental benefits with partial employee contribution

• 12 weeks of paid parental leave

• Access to One Medical, Teledoc, HealthAdvocate, Kindbody, and Talkspace

• Company 401k program

• Commuter benefits

• Life Insurance

• Tech startup environment

• Weekly team meals and an office stocked with coffee and snacks

• Working on the world’s biggest issue with other passionate professionals

We are an equal opportunity employer and value diversity at our company. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status.


Once you've applied, please be sure to check your spam folder, as emails from our recruiting team are sometimes rerouted.