Founding Data Engineer

Building the first comprehensive database and AI-powered platform that aggregates climate resilience insights from various planning documents across all US states. The platform will enable investment professionals to quickly research climate adaptation efforts for due diligence.

• Trial: 1-3 weeks, 20 hrs/week starting immediately
• $40-62.5/hr based on experience
• Remote or hybrid SF Bay Area
• Potential founding team role based on performance

What You'll Build

Transform our scrappy prototype into a scalable system that processes tens of thousands of municipal documents nationwide, extracts structured project data using AI, and provides fast location-based search for climate adaptation projects.

Key Responsibilities

Scale the Architecture

• Migrate prototype to production cloud infrastructure (AWS/GCP)
• Build distributed systems for parallel document processing and web scraping
• Design scalable databases (relational + vector) with cost/performance optimization

Production Data Pipeline

• Create robust ETL with error handling, monitoring, and automated retries
• Implement accurate geocoding across inconsistent municipal address formats
• Standardize data validation across diverse state/municipal document types
• Build RESTful APIs and efficient search functionality

AI-Powered Extraction

• Scale LLM-based PDF processing while managing API costs
• Implement semantic search across infrastructure project databases
• Enhance AI extraction accuracy from unstructured municipal documents

Technical Requirements

• Languages: Python, TypeScript, SQL
• Cloud Platforms: AWS, GCP, or Azure with distributed systems experience
• Databases: PostgreSQL, vector databases (Pinecone, Supabase)
• AI/ML: LangChain, vector embeddings, RAG, conversational agents
• Data Pipeline Tools: Apache Airflow (or similar tools)
• Web Scraping: Scrapy, Selenium, Google Custom Search API
• Geocoding: Google Maps API, OpenStreetMap, PostGIS
• PDF Processing: Text extraction and document parsing libraries

Nice to have

Technical Mindset

• Thinks in systems and can architect for scale from day one
• Comfortable making technical decisions with limited guidance
• Experience debugging production issues and optimizing performance
• Wants to shape engineering culture and hiring as the team grows

Enjoy working in start-up environment

• Takes ownership and drives projects to completion
• Adapts quickly to changing requirements and priorities
• Direct communication style with both technical and non-technical stakeholders

Passionate about urban climate adaptation and resilience

• Background in municipal/government document analysis
• Familiarity with infrastructure planning or environmental data
• Interest in climate risk assessment or sustainability tech
• Previous work with public sector or policy-related datasets