Founding Atmospheric Engineer

Sorcerer is deploying a global network of persistent airborne sensors to fuel weather forecasting. Our high-altitude balloons collect 1000x more data than existing systems and are already used daily by meteorologists to track extreme weather across the US and Central America.

We are a well-funded early-stage Y Combinator backed startup based in San Francisco, CA. This is an opportunity to join at the very early stage, where you have an outsized impact across the company every day.

As the Founding Atmospheric Engineer at Sorcerer you’ll own our entire weather forecasting stack end to end. Build NWP and ML models, assimilate unique balloon observations, deploy in the cloud, validate against real‑world data, and help close new customers.

• Design, train/build, and deploy weather forecasting models (both NWP and ML).

• End-to-end ownership including deployment on cloud infrastructure

• Work directly with the founders to scope pilots, craft demos, and connect forecast skill to customer value.

• Develop and operate a DA pipeline that blends Sorcerer balloon observations with other data sources.

• Define and maintain evaluation: backtesting, real‑time monitoring, benchmark baselines.

• Hire and lead the weather team as we scale.

• 6+ years of Professional Atmospheric Science experience

• Expertise in open source numeric weather models (WRF, MPAS, etc.), and experience running ML models (GraphCast, Anemoi, etc.)

• Strong software engineering skills (Git, Python, etc.)

• Excellent communicator, comfortable with customer‑facing work

• Have extensive experience managing cloud infrastructure (AWS, GCP, Azure)

• Succeed with a high level of autonomy

• This is an in-office role at our HQ in SOMA, San Francisco.

• 401k

• Unlimited PTO

• 100% Health, Dental, Vision

• Company paid life insurance

• All relocation costs covered (if applicable)

• Catered lunch every day

• Fully-stocked office kitchen

• Commute/parking stipend OR monthly proximity benefit if you relocate to within 30m walk of the office

Hiring exceptional people is our top priority, and we believe that exceptional people often have unusual backgrounds. Don’t be discouraged from applying if you don’t hit every qualification.

We are an equal-opportunity employer and do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, veteran status, disability or other legally protected statuses.

Compensation Range: $180K - $240K