Senior Instrument Calibration Scientist
South Park Commons is a community and early-stage venture firm that helps talented founders and technologists move from an idea (-1) to a company (0). It runs a no-cost, no-equity residency program for ideation and exploration, and provides $1M to $10M in funding for founders ready to build venture-scale companies.
About South Park Commons
South Park Commons operates a talent-dense community of technical founders, researchers, and domain experts who test ideas, find collaborators, and build conviction on what to build and how to build it. Its offering spans two stages: a six-month Residency with no cost or equity focused on ideation and exploration, and Funding of $1M to $10M for members ready to build venture-scale companies. Beyond capital, SPC provides learning forums on frontier topics (embodied AI, reinforcement learning, energy-efficient computing, AI in biotech), live programming with industry leaders, partner collaboration from a team of former founders and operators, social scaffolding to counter the isolation of early company building, and up to $1M in credits and perks from partners like Anthropic, OpenAI, Microsoft, GCP, and AWS. SPC has spaces in San Francisco, New York, and Bengaluru, and its community has produced companies such as Render, Luma Labs, Pilot, Comun, Anthropic, Unit21, and Profound.
Skills
About the Role
You will join the instrument team as a key contributor focused on calibrating infrared remote sensing instruments. You'll establish scalable calibration hardware infrastructure and processes to ensure delivery of science-grade radiometric and geometric calibration artifacts to the data team. You'll work hands-on with precision optical equipment, lead calibration campaigns, and collaborate closely with instrument and spacecraft systems engineers, data scientists, mission operations engineers, and program managers. You'll also participate in a 24/7 on-call rotation approximately one week per month to support on-orbit anomaly resolution.
Requirements
- Ph.D. and 3+ years of experience developing imaging systems and infrared remote sensing instruments within a multi-disciplinary environment; or M.S. and 6+ years industry experience; or B.S. and 8+ years industry experience
- Software skills in one or more languages (e.g. Python, Julia, C++)
- Experience working hands-on with precision optical equipment for instrument characterization and calibration
- Experience with root cause analysis efforts including data analysis and testing
- Experience performing data analysis, post-processing, and test report generation
- Excellent communication, presentation, and organization skills
- Excited to work in a fast-paced environment with new challenges each week
- Experience supporting business development including technical contributions to proposals
- Experience translating mission and science requirements into technical requirements
- Experience developing instrument concept of operations (ConOps)
- Experience working in cleanroom environments
- Experience supporting environmental testing (thermal stress screening, TVAC, random vibration), integrated spacecraft testing, and launch campaigns
Responsibilities
- Own radiometric and geometric calibration standards across multiple instrument programs, developing best practices and ensuring adherence to defined processes
- Lead the design and development of scalable calibration test hardware infrastructure
- Lead the planning and execution of pre-launch radiometric and geometric calibration campaigns to establish baseline sensor performance models
- Support definition and tracking of metrics to monitor the performance of instruments from ground to orbit
- Collaborate and communicate effectively with instrument and spacecraft systems engineers, data scientists, mission operations engineers, and program managers
- Participate in a 24/7 on-call rotation to support on-orbit anomaly resolution approximately one week per month
Benefits
- Equity compensation
- Medical insurance
- Dental insurance
- Vision insurance
- 401k retirement plan
- Short term disability insurance
- Long term disability insurance
- Life insurance
- Three weeks paid vacation for new employees
- 12 paid holidays
- Unlimited sick time
- Paid parental leave