Senior Software Engineer (Geospatial Data)

We are a fast-growing, Series A NatureTech company (backed by leading investors AzureX Space Ventures, Equinor Ventures, and Intercontinental Exchange) on a mission to enable zero deforestation and degradation and support mass forest restoration by producing the highest-quality nature mapping data and insights products.

Data is at the heart of Space Intelligence. We process large volumes of satellite data and analyse it within a machine learning framework to produce valuable nature mapping products for our clients.

Our products are trusted by the developers and investors in nature-based solutions, including Apple, Climate Asset Management, Everland, and WCS. They are also used to support the validation of compliance with the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) through our partnership with ICE's Commodity Traceability Service (COT).

We are a group of passionate, dedicated individuals with deep technical and scientific knowledge necessary for producing reliable, high-quality data and insights. We have a strong understanding of our customers' needs and develop long-term relationships that add value.

We are a values-driven organisation, embodying these principles in our daily work: we are Science-driven, with a Commitment to Quality, always Acting with Integrity. We have a focus on Innovation to create better products for our clients and an overall commitment to Equality. We are striving to create a commercial culture that is meritocratic and outcome-oriented.

Purpose 

Our Senior Software Engineers in the Pipelines Data team Partner with our world class Mapping Science and research teams to create pipelines for large scale analysis of Satellite imagery (Gigapixels scale) using data manipulation and machine learning.  

You’ll:

• Write ML and Data pipelines in python from scratch, with scientific input from the Science team.  
• Optimise (for performance, and maintainability) pipelines written by others.  

Our Pipelines team splits their time between working in an engineering focused team, and embedding into our Science team, producing actual data, assisting them with big data engineering, and helping them optimise our pipelines.   

This role is a leadership role involving providing technical leadership, and mentoring to the team.  

Who the role reports to

One of our Software Engineering Managers, or Head of Engineering. 

Key Responsibilities and Deliverables

Your top level responsibility is to develop, deliver and maintain high quality products.  Key responsibilities within that will be as follows:

• Be a leader in the team, mentoring and training other team members, and stepping up to lead projects or delivery as needed. You’ll “lead by example” modelling good practice.  
• Deliver high quality, low defect, maintainable (well structured for extension, well designed, documented & tested) code and systems, working closely as part of the team.  
• Review other engineers’ code, with a focus on their development - using the opportunity to mentor and train them.  
• Debug and fix issues identified in testing or production.  - inc. providing UK business hours support.  
• Lead and contribute to testing.  

The above is not exhaustive. Within reason, and in discussion with the role-holder, we may amend from time to time and may also ask to carry out other tasks that we consider appropriate.

Key Qualifications, Requirements, Competencies

• Although you may not be a scientist by training, you’ll be keen to partner closely with Forest, Data and Remote sensing scientists, learning to speak their language.  You’ll likely have either a strong academic background in Physical Science / Geospatial, or at least demonstrable interest in this area and be a quick learner.  
• You will have experience with dealing with big datasets, optimising performance and implementing scalable solutions.
• (Desirable) Experience of Machine Learning for geospatial data or similar areas such as Computer Vision
• Extensive experience of software engineering, including design, implementation, Testing (manual and automated) and problem diagnosis.  Typically 5+ years.  - covering at least 1 of the team’s focus areas of (Geospatial)Data, DevOps or ML
• A technical degree or equivalent experience - Software Engineering/CS/ML degree is a bonus but not required.  
• You’ll have taken ownership of the development of significant software products or components in a multi person team.  
• (Desirable) Significant experience of Scrum/Agile.  
• Our tech stack is as follows - knowledge of these is a bonus but not required.  
• Azure
• Terraform
• Python
• xArray and Dask
• GitHub
• We are looking for a candidate who will be based in our office in central Edinburgh. Most of our team are in the office most days, and we feel you will learn fastest if you are in the office most days too. However, we support hybrid working and would be happy for you to work 1-2 days a week from home. 
• Right to work in the UK

Key decisions this role-holder makes

• Technical design decisions - e.g. infrastructure / library selection  
• Architectural decisions - proposing the appropriate architecture for a piece of software/infrastructure.  
• Prioritisation decisions - do we do X or Y first?  Do we need to do Z before we release?

For all of the above - you’ll make smaller decisions independently, larger decisions you’ll drive, and agree with the team and other stakeholders, and the biggest you’ll make in collaboration with the Head of Engineering.  

Company values

We have defined values and we are proud of them. Each team member has an obligation to work in a way that is in keeping with our values and this will form part of how we assess contribution to our business.

Our values are -

• Science Driven
• Committed to Quality
• Integrity
• Innovation
• Equality

Working hours

37.5 hrs full time. We also welcome applicants to do this role Part time, ideally 70%+.  We are a family friendly employer and offer a degree of flexi-time.  

All our roles operate within normal office hours, Mon - Friday. Very rarely, weekend and evening working may be required

Some travelling may be required - up to 10% of time for this role

How to apply

Please send your CV and a cover letter explaining why you’re particularly suited for this role to careers@space-intelligence.com

Closing date: This is an open role so we have not set a date to apply by. If interested, we’d love to see your CV as soon as possible.