Career Opportunities
Senior/Principal Exploration Geophysicist
In this role, you will lead geophysical data collection and analysis for KoBold projects, and you will generate and implement novel ideas for gaining insight from geophysical data.
Principal Geoscientist
In this role, you will generate novel ideas of where and how to explore and put them into practice through rigorous analysis of geoscientific data and close collaboration with KoBold data scientists
Senior Geologist
In this role, you will identify opportunities with rigorous evaluation and ensure that we safely and effectively conduct our field programs.
Data Scientist
In this role, you will build predictive models and apply a wide range of scientific computing, statistical, and physics-based methods to find places where there is evidence of ore-forming processes at work and to predict the locations of ore-grade mineralization in 2D and 3D.
Geologist
In this role, you will be part of the core team responsible for identifying targets, conducting rigorous geologic assessments of ground for potential claim-staking or acquisition, and performing geologic analysis as well as planning and conducting field work on our properties.
GIS Data Specialist
In this role you will be responsible for curating geoscientific datasets and using them to build well-organized and styled GIS projects to support our exploration and scientific discovery efforts.
Stanford University Post-doc position: Applying Artificial Intelligence for a Sustainable Energy Future
We are seeking a postdoctoral researcher for a 2-year position to research the application of artificial intelligence for the exploration of critical battery metals.
Exceptional candidates for roles not listed above are welcome to email resumes and cover letters to jobs@koboldmetals.com.
Director of Data Science & Digital Exploration
About the company
KoBold Metals is pioneering Digital Exploration— the application of statistical modeling, big data aggregation, and basic science to materially improve the pace and efficacy of natural resources exploration. We are building and using our proprietary tools specifically to explore for new sources of cobalt, a metal that is necessary for making safe, durable, fast-charging, high-capacity lithium-ion batteries. As electric vehicles (EVs) become widespread, many new cobalt mines will be needed, and the discovery of new cobalt deposits will partially limit the pace of EV adoption. The incumbent cobalt supply is challenged with severe labor and ethical issues, so KoBold’s objective is to help enable the EV revolution by finding many new sources of ethical cobalt from reliable jurisdictions. We will achieve that objective by building the world’s most scientifically sophisticated and data-focused cobalt exploration company.
About the position
The Director of Data Science & Digital Exploration will lead the development of software to accelerate discovery of new supplies of cobalt and oversee the construction of a proprietary worldwide dataset that underlies our digital program. As the leader of KoBold’s digital exploration team, you will work closely with KoBold’s team of world-renowned geochemists, geophysicists, and geologists, who have a long track record of making major discoveries. Your role is to be the interface between our physical scientists and our software developers and to build tools that help KoBold solve challenging scientific problems and help enable the widespread adoption of electric vehicles.
Responsibilities
The Director of Data Science & Digital Exploration will lead the team responsible for:
- Aggregating and curating geological, geophysical, geochemical, and geographic data from around the world
- Integrating the data into a well-structured proprietary database
- Building algorithms to formalize geophysical and geochemical theories of cobalt ore formation and rigorously incorporating new observational, statistical, and experimental insights as systematic search criteria
- Refining the algorithms based on feedback from the exploration team
- Developing interactive tools for mapping areas that are prospective for discovery
- Creating statistical association and machine learning models for predicting mineral occurrences and prospectivity
- Supporting the exploration team with various geospatial, statistical, and other scientific analyses
Qualifications
A great Director of Data Science and Digital Exploration candidate will have:
- A Ph.D. in the physical sciences, engineering, or mathematics
- 5+ years relevant work experience
- Proficiency in SQL and python
- Experience creating/managing large databases with diverse data types
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills
- Demonstrated ability to interact with technical experts in different disciplines and intellectual curiosity to rapidly acquire scientific knowledge in new areas
The Director of Data Science and Digital Exploration will lead a technical team that will include at least 3 additional engineers/analysts . KoBold Metals is an equal opportunity workplace and an affirmative action employer. We are committed to equal employment opportunity for people of any race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, marital status, national origin, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, or veteran status.
This position is full-time, exempt.
Location: KoBold Metals has an office in Palo Alto but has many employees working remotely and is happy to consider applicants in any location.
Interested applicants should contact info@koboldmetals.com.
Software Engineer
About the company
KoBold Metals is using machine learning, and other scientific computing techniques, to explore for the critical materials needed to build electric vehicles and personal electronics. Our data platform, TerraShed™, aggregates and integrates vast collections of scientific data from around the world. We use the data in TerraShed™ to predict the locations of compositional anomalies and to rigorously quantify how new data can decrease the uncertainty of our predictions. These models – our Machine Prospector™ software – incorporate this value-of-information framework to guide our decisions of where to acquire land and what field data to collect, from geochemical sampling to airborne surveys to drilling campaigns.
As electric vehicles become widespread, many new mines will be needed; but before new deposits can be mined, they have to be discovered. Our objective is to find new ore deposits rich in critical battery materials. KoBold’s team combines the world’s top mineral explorers with an outstanding team of data scientists and software engineers. We are building a portfolio of assets, and we will monetize those assets after increasing the value through discovery and definition of resources and reserves.
KoBold Metals is backed by Andreessen Horowitz, Breakthrough Energy Ventures and Equinor.
About the position
In this role, you will help develop software that accelerates discovery of new supplies of cobalt, and you will help build a worldwide geospatial dataset that underlies our digital exploration program. As part of KoBold’s digital exploration team, you will work closely with both KoBold’s team of world-renowned geoscientists and our data team. Ultimately, your role is to help build technology to solve challenging scientific problems and to enable the widespread adoption of electric vehicles. As one of the first members of this team, you will help build these tools from the ground up.
Responsibilities
The Software Engineer will:
- Help develop KoBold’s proprietary software called Machine Prospector™
- Design aspects of the data system to store and quickly process and access a wide variety of geoscience data
- Integrate geophysical, geochemical, geologic, and geographic data from around the world into a well-structured proprietary database
- Create tools for ingesting unstructured datasets and extracting key features
- Work with data scientists to implement and improve algorithms and machine learning models
- Develop interactive visualizations to enable the data team and geoscience teams to rapidly view and interrogate the model results and underlying data
Qualifications
A great Software Engineer candidate will have:
- Proficiency in Python
- A technical stack that includes most or all of: Python, Postgres/PostGIS, Elasticsearch, AWS, GIS, Tensorflow, git, non-relational databases
- A range of experience including any or all of: distributed computing, algorithms, and creating/managing large databases and pipelines
- A minimum of 2 years of relevant full-time professional work experience in the private sector, writing code in a production environment
- The ability to work well with technical experts who aren’t software people and to effectively communicate engineering, concepts, requirements, and processes to non-engineers
- Excitement about joining a fast-growing early-stage company, comfort with a dynamic work environment, and eagerness to take on a range of responsibilities
- Enjoyment in getting the details right
It is helpful but not required to have:
- Experience working with data originating from physical measurements, including analysis of measurement error
- Experience with geospatial databases, analyses, and/or visualizations
- Experience with planning and implementing information security measures
- A bachelor’s degree or higher in the physical sciences, engineering, computer science, or mathematics
KoBold Metals is an equal opportunity workplace and an affirmative action employer. We are committed to equal employment opportunity for people of any race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, marital status, national origin, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, or veteran status.
This position is full-time, exempt.
Location: KoBold Metals has an office in Berkeley, CA; partial remote work is an option.
Interested applicants should contact info@koboldmetals.com.
Senior Associate – Business Development
About the company
KoBold Metals is using machine learning, and other scientific computing techniques, to explore for the critical materials needed to build electric vehicles and personal electronics. Our data platform, TerraShed™, aggregates and integrates vast collections of scientific data from around the world. We use the data in TerraShed™ to predict the locations of compositional anomalies and to rigorously quantify how new data can decrease the uncertainty of our predictions. These models – our Machine Prospector™ software – incorporate this value-of-information framework to guide our decisions of where to acquire land and what field data to collect, from geochemical sampling to airborne surveys to drilling campaigns.
As electric vehicles become widespread, many new mines will be needed; but before new deposits can be mined, they have to be discovered. Our objective is to find new ore deposits rich in critical battery materials. KoBold’s team combines the world’s top mineral explorers with an outstanding team of data scientists and software engineers. We are building a portfolio of assets, and we will monetize those assets after increasing the value through discovery and definition of resources and reserves.
KoBold Metals is backed by Andreessen Horowitz, Breakthrough Energy Ventures and Equinor.
About the position
The Senior Associate will lead KoBold’s commercial evaluation of potential asset transactions and conduct economic analyses to inform KoBold’s exploration strategy. As KoBold is currently building its portfolio, the Senior Associate will support originating, negotiating, and especially underwriting asset acquisitions. The Senior Associate will provide critical input into the company strategy and work closely with the geology team in evaluating potential projects.
The Senior Associate will develop a view of the global market for battery materials. This position will require developing a comprehensive view of development-stage opportunities, establishing KoBold’s presence and credibility in the A&D market, aggressively prioritizing opportunities according to KoBold’s strategy, and doing economic analyses to rapidly screen potential projects and to inform KoBold’s exploration strategy. The Senior Associate will be deeply involved in all transactions and will be individually responsible for conducting a rigorous evaluation of the potential economics and risks.
Responsibilities
The Senior Associate will:
- Create a comprehensive global view of the battery materials supply market and generate potential opportunities
- Speak with potential counterparties and effectively screen opportunities according to KoBold’s strategy and transactability
- Develop economic models for different styles of deposits and use economic analyses to inform our global exploration strategy
- Conduct commercial due diligence on potential acquisitions, including financial modeling, considerations of land tenure, regulatory matters, and other above-ground risks
- Individually build and maintain very detailed economic models of potential projects
- Support deal structuring and negotiation and help drive transactions to completion
- Partner with the geologic team to acquire new mineral titles on greenfield opportunities from the relevant ministerial authorities
Qualifications
A great Senior Associate candidate will have:
- A minimum of 7 years of experience at an exploration, development, or operating company; as a principal investor; or in relevant professional services (e.g., engineering/geoscience/consulting/finance). Professional experience must be in natural resources, but may be either in metals & mining or in oil & gas
- Experience evaluating the economics/commercial potential of ore-deposit developments
- A high standard of rigor in due diligence and enjoyment in getting the details right
- Experience with corporate or asset transactions
- The ability to work with technical experts
- Insatiable intellectual curiosity
- Prior work in engineering or geoscience, or a degree in a physical science, mathematics, or engineering discipline
It is helpful but not required to have:
- Professional experience as a mining engineer, metallurgist/processing engineer, or geologist, whether for an operating company, investor, or professional service firm
- Experience with the python programming language
- Fluency in one or more relevant foreign languages
KoBold Metals is an equal opportunity workplace and an affirmative action employer. We are committed to equal employment opportunity for people of any race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, marital status, national origin, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, or veteran status.
This position is full-time, exempt.
Location: Vancouver, BC is preferred. Partial remote work is a possibility; locations with significant mining deal flow would be given greater consideration. Must be able to travel internationally.
Interested applicants should contact info@koboldmetals.com.
Geoscience Data Analyst
About the company
KoBold Metals is using machine learning, and other scientific computing techniques, to explore for the critical materials needed to build electric vehicles and personal electronics. Our data platform, TerraShed™, aggregates and integrates vast collections of scientific data from around the world. We use the data in TerraShed™ to predict the locations of compositional anomalies and to rigorously quantify how new data can decrease the uncertainty of our predictions. These models – our Machine Prospector™ software – incorporate this value-of-information framework to guide our decisions of where to acquire land and what field data to collect, from geochemical sampling to airborne surveys to drilling campaigns.
As electric vehicles become widespread, many new mines will be needed; but before new deposits can be mined, they have to be discovered. Our objective is to find new ore deposits rich in critical battery materials. KoBold’s team combines the world’s top mineral explorers with an outstanding team of data scientists and software engineers. We are building a portfolio of assets, and we will monetize those assets after increasing the value through discovery and definition of resources and reserves.
KoBold Metals is backed by Andreessen Horowitz, Breakthrough Energy Ventures and Equinor.
About the position
In this role, you will help develop software to accelerate discovery of battery metals, and you will help build a worldwide geospatial dataset that underlies our digital exploration program. You will join an outstanding team of data scientists and engineers and will work closely with KoBold’s world-renowned geoscientists. You will be a core part of the data science team, and your role is to help build data tools to solve challenging scientific problems and to enable the widespread adoption of electric vehicles. As one of the early members of this team, you will help build these tools from the ground up.
Responsibilities
The Geoscience Data Analyst will:
- Help develop KoBold’s proprietary software called Machine Prospector™
- Aggregate geophysical, geochemical, geologic, and geographic data from around the world
- Analyze the data to identify potential measurement errors, missing data, inconsistencies with other datasets
- Integrate the data into a well-structured, curated, proprietary database
- Find insights in unstructured data and work with the engineering team to ingest and extract key features from these datasets
- Work with the data science team to build predictive models for finding ore deposits
- Support the data and exploration teams with ad hoc geospatial analyses
Qualifications
A great Geoscience Data Analyst candidate will have:
- Experience with Python and SQL
- Experience working with geospatial data
- Experience with geospatial visualization tools, including GIS
- A bachelor’s degree or higher in geology, or a degree in the physical sciences, engineering, computer science, or mathematics with significant coursework in geoscience and familiarity with statistical fundamentals
- Enjoyment in getting the details right
KoBold Metals is an equal opportunity workplace and an affirmative action employer. We are committed to equal employment opportunity for people of any race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, marital status, national origin, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, or veteran status.
This position is full-time, exempt.
Location: KoBold Metals has offices in Vancouver, BC and Berkeley, CA; partial remote work is an option.
Interested applicants should contact info@koboldmetals.com. Applicants with less than three years of postgraduate full-time work experience should also include a transcript or course record.
Project Development Analyst
About the company
KoBold Metals is using machine learning, and other scientific computing techniques, to explore for the critical materials needed to build electric vehicles and personal electronics. Our data platform, TerraShed™, aggregates and integrates vast collections of scientific data from around the world. We use the data in TerraShed™ to predict the locations of compositional anomalies and to rigorously quantify how new data can decrease the uncertainty of our predictions. These models – our Machine Prospector™ software – incorporate this value-of-information framework to guide our decisions of where to acquire land and what field data to collect, from geochemical sampling to airborne surveys to drilling campaigns.
As electric vehicles become widespread, many new mines will be needed; but before new deposits can be mined, they have to be discovered. Our objective is to find new ore deposits rich in critical battery materials. KoBold’s team combines the world’s top mineral explorers with an outstanding team of data scientists and software engineers. We are building a portfolio of assets, and we will monetize those assets after increasing the value through discovery and definition of resources and reserves.
KoBold Metals is backed by Andreessen Horowitz, Breakthrough Energy Ventures and Equinor.
About the position
The Analyst will conduct KoBold’s economic analysis of project opportunities and transactions, and will help frame development and ore processing options for target assets. As KoBold builds its portfolio, the Analyst will support originating and underwriting asset acquisitions, which will include appropriately characterizing future development options.
The Analyst will be deeply involved in all KoBold transactions and will be individually responsible for rigorous analysis of economics and potential risks. This position will require developing a comprehensive view of development-stage opportunities, aggressively prioritizing opportunities according to KoBold’s strategy, and conducting economic analyses to rapidly screen potential projects.
Responsibilities
The Project Development Analyst will:
- Develop economic models for different styles of mines and mineral deposits in varying jurisdictions that underpin our commercial activity and economically inform our exploration and development strategy
- Build and maintain detailed economic models of potential projects
- Knowledgeably engage in and contribute to discussions with engineering and geoscience staff on project development options and plans
- Assist due diligence on potential acquisitions, including financial modeling, consideration of land tenure, regulatory matters, and other above-ground risks
- Speak with potential counterparties and effectively screen opportunities according to KoBold’s strategy and transactability
Qualifications
A great Project Development Analyst candidate will have:
- Demonstrated ability to independently structure engineering and economic assessments, build requisite models, complete analysis, and effectively communicate results and conclusions to stakeholders and decision-makers
- A minimum of 4 years of professional experience in a metals & mining exploration, development, or operating company; or in allied professional services (e.g., engineering/consulting) in roles including mining engineer, metallurgist/processing engineer, or project development engineer
- Experience in evaluating the economics/commercial potential of ore-deposit developments
- An academic degree in an engineering, mathematics, or physical science discipline
- A high standard of analytical rigor and enjoyment in getting the details right
- The ability to work with technical subject matter experts
- Insatiable intellectual curiosity
It is helpful but not required to have:
- Experience with the Python programming language
- Fluency in one or more relevant foreign languages
- A companion academic degree in business or economics
KoBold Metals is an equal opportunity workplace and an affirmative action employer. We are committed to equal employment opportunity for people of any race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, marital status, national origin, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, or veteran status.
This position is full-time, exempt.
Location: Preferred locations are Vancouver, BC or Berkeley, CA, where KoBold has offices. Remote work can be considered. Must be able to travel internationally.
Interested applicants should contact Jeff Jurinak, jeff.jurinak@koboldmetals.com.
Machine Learning Engineer
About the company
KoBold Metals is using machine learning, and other scientific computing techniques, to explore for the critical materials needed to build electric vehicles and personal electronics. Our data platform, TerraShed™, aggregates and integrates vast collections of scientific data from around the world. We use the data in TerraShed™ to predict the locations of compositional anomalies and to rigorously quantify how new data can decrease the uncertainty of our predictions. These models – our Machine Prospector™ software – incorporate this value-of-information framework to guide our decisions of where to acquire land and what field data to collect, from geochemical sampling to airborne surveys to drilling campaigns.
As electric vehicles become widespread, many new mines will be needed; but before new deposits can be mined, they have to be discovered. Our objective is to find new ore deposits rich in critical battery materials. KoBold’s team combines the world’s top mineral explorers with an outstanding team of data scientists and software engineers. We are building a portfolio of assets, and we will monetize those assets after increasing the value through discovery and definition of resources and reserves.
KoBold Metals is backed by Andreessen Horowitz, Breakthrough Energy Ventures and Equinor.
About the position
In this role, you will help develop software to accelerate discovery of battery metals, and you will help build a worldwide geospatial dataset that underlies our digital exploration program. You will join an outstanding team of data scientists and engineers and will work closely with KoBold’s world-renowned geoscientists. Ultimately, your role is to help build data tools to solve challenging scientific problems and to enable the widespread adoption of electric vehicles. As one of the early members of this team, you will help build these tools from the ground up.
Responsibilities
The Machine Learning Engineer will:
- Help develop KoBold’s proprietary software called Machine Prospector™
- Integrate a wide variety of geophysical, geochemical, geologic, and geographic data from around the world into a well-structured proprietary database
- Develop tools for ingesting unstructured datasets and extracting key features
- Create machine learning models to predict the locations of mineral ore deposits
- Implement and refine algorithms and systems for building predictive models on large and diverse datasets
- Create effective visualizations for evaluating model performance and enabling rapid interaction with the underlying data and key features
Qualifications
A great Machine Learning Engineer candidate will have:
- Proficiency in Python and SQL
- A technical stack that includes most or all of: Python, Postgres/PostGIS, Elasticsearch, AWS, GIS, Tensorflow, git
- Experience building a wide variety of machine learning models and applying them to different problems
- Excellent skills at designing data structures and efficiently implementing algorithms
- Experience working with data originating from physical measurements, including analysis of measurement error
- Interest and ability to find and apply the best and most appropriate tools from technical literature or elsewhere
- At least 3 years of relevant full-time professional work experience in the private sector, writing code in a production environment
- The ability to work well with technical experts who aren’t software people
- Excitement about joining a fast-growing early-stage company, comfort with a dynamic work environment, and eagerness to take on a range of responsibilities
- Enjoyment in getting the details right
It is helpful but not required to have:
- Experience with geospatial analyses and visualizations
- Experience creating machine learning models on geospatial data
- Experience setting up distributed computing systems and deploying models on them
- Experience in image processing or computer vision
- A bachelor’s degree or higher in the physical sciences, engineering, computer science, or mathematics
KoBold Metals is an equal opportunity workplace and an affirmative action employer. We are committed to equal employment opportunity for people of any race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, marital status, national origin, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, or veteran status.
This position is full-time, exempt.
Location: KoBold Metals has an office in Berkeley, CA; partial remote work is an option.
Interested applicants should contact jobs@koboldmetals.com.
Senior Geologist
About the company
KoBold Metals is a mineral exploration company created to increase the ethical supply of critical materials, including Ni, Co, Cu, and Li, that are needed to build electric vehicles and renewable energy storage. Many new mines will be needed if electric vehicles are to become widespread, but before new ore deposits can be mined, they must be found.
KoBold’s objective is to make more discoveries with fewer failures by drawing on both world-class expertise in exploration geoscience and machine learning and other scientific computing techniques. KoBold employees’ equity ownership in the company enables everyone on the team to share in the value we create through our discoveries.
Our technology includes a comprehensive data system and a broad suite of analytical tools that helps guide our decisions from concept generation to drill testing to resource expansion to mine development and operations. Our data platform, TerraShed™, aggregates, structures, and QCs vast collections of scientific data and makes it rapidly available for visualization and analysis. Our suite of algorithms, Machine Prospector®, interrogates that data with a range of techniques —from computer vision to full-physics joint inversions to ensemble machine learning—to generate features that are tied to ore-forming processes or that tease out subtle signals in the data. We use those features to predict subsurface composition, permissive structural and stratigraphic settings, or other important controls on mineralization.
Our models are designed to rigorously quantify the uncertainty in our predictions and to estimate how different ways of collecting incremental data will decrease the uncertainty in our knowledge of the subsurface. These insights inform our decisions of where to acquire mineral properties, what data to collect in the field, and where to drill to discover new ore deposits. And our technology system enables us to use new information in the field to refine our models and adapt our field programs in real time.
Our team includes top mineral explorers who collectively have more than 300 years of exploration experience and have made nearly 20 discoveries. KoBold geoscientists work on exploration teams jointly with outstanding data scientists, who have Ph.D.’s in physics, math, materials science, and geophysics. And our technology backbone has been built from scratch by our team of software engineers who are alumni of top Silicon Valley tech companies.
KoBold Metals is backed by Andreessen Horowitz, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, and Equinor.
About the position
In this role, you will lead evaluations of potential properties for acquisition, generate targets, and design and oversee field programs from target definition through to resource expansion. You will be part of a multidisciplinary team and will work closely with data scientists, using KoBold’s technology to help guide our field programs and decision-making. You will also work directly with our senior technical advisors and with the executive team on making the investment case for acquisitions and field programs.
Ultimately, your role is to help KoBold make valuable discoveries by identifying opportunities with rigorous evaluation and by ensuring that we safely and effectively conduct our field programs.
Responsibilities
- Demonstrate in all activities a commitment to the highest standards in health and safety, environment, and community relations
- Rigorously analyze geoscientific datasets across a range of scales from provinces to prospects to determine exploration potential and to identify, rank, and prioritize exploration targets
- Design, budget, permit, and execute field programs ranging from geological mapping and sampling of grass roots prospects through to large drilling programs on advanced projects, with leading industry practice in data acquisition and validation
- Provide technical guidance and support to local in-country project teams during the design and execution of exploration programs, including site visits and engagement with other project stakeholders (e.g., community representatives, regulatory authorities, and joint venture partners)
- Work collaboratively with data scientist colleagues to conceive and implement insightful analytical methods
Qualifications
A great Senior Geologist candidate will have:
- Strong technical knowledge of one or more ore deposit types. Experience working on sediment-hosted stratiform copper or magmatic sulfide deposits will be considered an advantage
- Excellence in generative analysis ranging from new concepts to integration, interpretation, and modeling of large datasets
- Good field skills and experience conducting field programs across a range of project stages from grassroots prospects through to advanced projects with significant drilling campaigns
- Baseline level of proficiency in standard desktop software packages (e.g., ArcGIS or QGIS)
- Strong leadership skills including the ability to motivate and inspire others, to share ownership and responsibility for project outcomes, and to work effectively in collaborative, interdisciplinary teams
- Previous experience in coaching and training geoscientists of varying experience, educational backgrounds and cultures in leading-practice mineral exploration
- Demonstrated commitment to high standards of health and safety in the workplace
- A minimum of 10 years experience in the mineral exploration industry
- B.Sc. degree in geology or related geoscience field
It is helpful but not required to have:
- A Ph.D. or M.Sc. degree
- Working knowledge of one programming or scripting language (e.g., Python, R, C/C++)
- Knowledge of geostatistics and/or other statistical methods relevant for analysis of geoscientific data
- International experience, particularly in the Central African Copperbelt
Note: Candidates who are specialists in geochemistry or geophysics but open to doing significant project work are encouraged to apply.
KoBold Metals is an equal opportunity workplace and an affirmative action employer. We are committed to equal employment opportunity for people of any race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, marital status, national origin, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, or veteran status.
This position is full-time, exempt.
Location: Open to remote, preferably in the US, Canada or Zambia. KoBold Metals has offices in Vancouver, BC and Berkeley, CA.
Interested applicants should send a resume to jobs@koboldmetals.com. Candidates should state whether they currently have authorization to work in the US or Canada.
Scientific Software Engineer
About the company
KoBold Metals is using machine learning, and other scientific computing techniques, to explore for the critical materials needed to build electric vehicles and personal electronics. Our data platform, TerraShed™, aggregates and integrates vast collections of scientific data from around the world. We use the data in TerraShed™ to predict the locations of compositional anomalies and to rigorously quantify how new data can decrease the uncertainty of our predictions. These models – our Machine Prospector™ software – incorporate this value-of-information framework to guide our decisions of where to acquire land and what field data to collect, from geochemical sampling to airborne surveys to drilling campaigns.
As electric vehicles become widespread, many new mines will be needed; but before new deposits can be mined, they have to be discovered. Our objective is to find new ore deposits rich in critical battery materials. KoBold’s team combines the world’s top mineral explorers with an outstanding team of data scientists and software engineers. We are building a portfolio of assets, and we will monetize those assets after increasing the value through discovery and definition of resources and reserves.
KoBold Metals is backed by Andreessen Horowitz, Breakthrough Energy Ventures and Equinor.
About the position
In this role, you will develop software to accelerate discovery of battery metals and build the global geoscience data system that underpins our machine learning models. You will join an outstanding team of data scientists and engineers and will work closely with KoBold’s world-renowned geoscientists. Ultimately, your role is to help build data tools to solve challenging scientific problems and to enable the widespread adoption of electric vehicles. As one of the early members of this team, you will help build these tools from the ground up.
Responsibilities
The Scientific Software Engineer will:
- Help develop KoBold’s proprietary software called Machine Prospector™
- Design components of the data system to store and to quickly process and access a wide variety of geoscience data
- Integrate physical, chemical, geologic, and geographic data from around the world into a well-structured proprietary database
- Create tools for ingesting unstructured datasets and extracting key features
- Work with data scientists to implement and improve algorithms and predictive models
- Develop interactive visualizations to enable the data team and geoscience teams to rapidly view and interrogate the model results and underlying data
Qualifications
A great Scientific Software Engineer candidate will have:
- Training in the physical sciences, with knowledge including physics, chemistry, thermodynamics, geology, materials science, and/or related engineering fields
- Substantial experience using computational methods for solving problems, ideally with physical science data
- Proficiency in at least one programming language, such as Python, Java, C++, MATLAB, or FORTRAN
- The ability to work well with technical experts who aren’t software people and to effectively communicate engineering concepts, requirements, and processes to non-engineers
- Excitement about joining a fast-growing early-stage company, comfort with a dynamic work environment, and eagerness to take on a range of responsibilities
- Enjoyment in getting the details right
It is helpful but not required to have:
- An advanced degree and/or research experience in experimental physical sciences
- Professional experience in the private sector writing code in a production environment
- Experience with geospatial databases, analyses, and/or visualizations
- Proficiency in Python
- A technical stack that includes PostgreSQL/PostGIS, Elasticsearch, AWS, GIS, Tensorflow, and/or git
- Experience creating/managing large databases and pipelines
Please note, this is role is primarily dedicated to building software tools to enable a wide range of analyses and models. Candidates who are interested mainly in analyzing datasets and building models are encouraged to apply instead for the Data Scientist and Geoscience Data Analyst positions.
KoBold Metals is an equal opportunity workplace and an affirmative action employer. We are committed to equal employment opportunity for people of any race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, marital status, national origin, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, or veteran status.
This position is full-time, exempt.
Location: KoBold Metals is based in Berkeley, CA; partial remote work is an option.
Interested applicants should contact info@koboldmetals.com.
Staff Engineer / Architect
About the company
KoBold Metals is using machine learning, and other scientific computing techniques, to explore for the critical materials needed to build electric vehicles and personal electronics. Our data platform, TerraShed™, aggregates and integrates vast collections of scientific data from around the world. We use the data in TerraShed™ to predict the locations of compositional anomalies and to rigorously quantify how new data can decrease the uncertainty of our predictions. These models – our Machine Prospector™ software – incorporate this value-of-information framework to guide our decisions of where to acquire land and what field data to collect, from geochemical sampling to airborne surveys to drilling campaigns.
As electric vehicles become widespread, many new mines will be needed; but before new deposits can be mined, they have to be discovered. Our objective is to find new ore deposits rich in critical battery materials. KoBold’s team combines the world’s top mineral explorers with an outstanding team of data scientists and software engineers. We are building a portfolio of assets, and we will monetize those assets after increasing the value through discovery and definition of resources and reserves.
KoBold Metals is backed by Andreessen Horowitz, Breakthrough Energy Ventures and Equinor.
About the position
In this role, you will design and develop software to accelerate discovery of battery metals, and you will architect and construct the global geoscience data system that underlies our digital exploration program. You will join an outstanding team of data scientists and engineers and will work closely with KoBold’s world-renowned geoscientists. Ultimately, your role is to help build data tools to solve challenging scientific problems and to enable the widespread adoption of electric vehicles. As one of the early members of this team, you will help build these tools from the ground up.
Responsibilities
The Staff Engineer / Architect will:
- Help develop KoBold’s proprietary software called Machine Prospector™
- Design components of the data system to store and quickly process and access a wide variety of geoscience data
- Integrate geophysical, geochemical, geologic, and geographic data from around the world into a well-structured proprietary database
- Create tools for ingesting unstructured datasets and extracting key features
- Select or design algorithms to improve performance of predictive models
- Design and implement infrastructure for distributed parallel computation
- Design, implement, and maintain security protocols for highly proprietary data
- Develop interactive visualizations to enable the data team and geoscience teams to rapidly view and interrogate the model results and underlying data
Qualifications
A great candidate will have:
-
- Experience designing and developing complex data systems that integrate disparate types of fragmentary data
- Experience building systems to work with data generated from physical measurements and familiarity with statistics used in analysis of scientific data, including measurement error
- Experience building systems to develop and deploy machine learning models and familiarity with the statistics underpinning these models
- Experience creating/managing large databases and pipelines
- Prior responsibility for planning and implementing information security measures
- Expertise in Python, and a tech stack that includes Postgres/PostGIS, Elasticsearch, AWS, GIS, Tensorflow, non-relational databases, git
- Experience with geospatial databases, analyses, and/or visualizations
- A bachelor’s degree or higher in the physical sciences, engineering, computer science, or mathematics (an advanced degree and/or significant research experience are a definite plus)
- 10+ years of relevant full-time professional work experience in the private sector
- A great track record as a mentor and coach to early-career engineers and colleagues in other technical disciplines (e.g., data science)
- The ability to work well with technical experts who aren’t software people and the ability to effectively communicate engineering, concepts, requirements, and processes to non-engineers
- Excitement about joining a fast-growing early-stage company, comfort with a dynamic work environment, and eagerness to take on a range of responsibilities
- Enjoyment in getting the details right
It is expected that the Staff Engineer / Architect may have direct reports and will have substantial technical supervisory responsibilities; however, this role — like all roles at KoBold — is primarily a technical contributor not a manager.
KoBold Metals is an equal opportunity workplace and an affirmative action employer. We are committed to equal employment opportunity for people of any race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, marital status, national origin, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, or veteran status.
This position is full-time, exempt.
Location: KoBold Metals has an office in Berkeley, CA; partial remote work is an option.
Interested applicants should contact jobs@koboldmetals.com.
Computational Scientist
About the company
KoBold Metals is using machine learning, and other scientific computing techniques, to explore for the critical materials needed to build electric vehicles and personal electronics. Our data platform, TerraShed™, aggregates and integrates vast collections of scientific data from around the world. We use the data in TerraShed™ to predict the locations of compositional anomalies and to rigorously quantify how new data can decrease the uncertainty of our predictions. These models – our Machine Prospector™ software – incorporate this value-of-information framework to guide our decisions of where to acquire land and what field data to collect, from geochemical sampling to airborne surveys to drilling campaigns.
As electric vehicles become widespread, many new mines will be needed; but before new deposits can be mined, they have to be discovered. Our objective is to find new ore deposits rich in critical battery materials. KoBold’s team combines the world’s top mineral explorers with an outstanding team of data scientists and software engineers. We are building a portfolio of assets, and we will monetize those assets after increasing the value through discovery and definition of resources and reserves.
KoBold Metals is backed by Andreessen Horowitz, Breakthrough Energy Ventures and Equinor.
About the position
In this role, you will develop software to accelerate discovery of battery metals and build the global geoscience data system that underpins our machine learning models. You will join an outstanding team of data scientists and engineers and will work closely with KoBold’s world-renowned geoscientists. Ultimately, your role is to help build data tools to solve challenging scientific problems and to enable the widespread adoption of electric vehicles. As one of the early members of this team, you will help build these tools from the ground up.
Responsibilities
The Computational Scientist will:
- Help develop KoBold’s proprietary software called Machine Prospector™
- Design components of the data system to store and to quickly process and access a wide variety of geoscience data
- Integrate physical, chemical, geologic, and geographic data from around the world into a well-structured proprietary database
- Create tools for ingesting unstructured datasets and extracting key features
- Work with data scientists to implement and improve algorithms and predictive models
- Develop interactive visualizations to enable the data team and geoscience teams to rapidly view and interrogate the model results and underlying data
Qualifications
A great Computational Scientist candidate will have:
- Training in the physical sciences, with knowledge including physics, chemistry, thermodynamics, geology, materials science, and/or related engineering fields
- Substantial experience using computational methods for solving problems, ideally with physical science data
- Proficiency in at least one programming language, such as Python, Java, C++, MATLAB, or FORTRAN
- The ability to work well with technical experts who aren’t software people and to effectively communicate engineering concepts, requirements, and processes to non-engineers
- Excitement about joining a fast-growing early-stage company, comfort with a dynamic work environment, and eagerness to take on a range of responsibilities
- Enjoyment in getting the details right
It is helpful but not required to have:
- An advanced degree and/or research experience in experimental physical sciences
- Professional experience in the private sector writing code in a production environment
- Experience with geospatial databases, analyses, and/or visualizations
- Proficiency in Python
- A technical stack that includes PostgreSQL/PostGIS, Elasticsearch, AWS, GIS, Tensorflow, and/or git
- Experience creating/managing large databases and pipelines
Please note, this is role is primarily dedicated to building software tools to enable a wide range of analyses and models. Candidates who are interested mainly in analyzing datasets and building models are encouraged to apply instead for the Data Scientist and Geoscience Data Analyst positions.
KoBold Metals is an equal opportunity workplace and an affirmative action employer. We are committed to equal employment opportunity for people of any race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, marital status, national origin, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, or veteran status.
This position is full-time, exempt.
Location: KoBold Metals has offices in Vancouver, BC and Berkeley, CA; partial remote work is an option.
Interested applicants should contact info@koboldmetals.com.
Director of Corporate Development
About the company
KoBold Metals is using machine learning, and other scientific computing techniques, to explore for the critical materials needed to build electric vehicles and personal electronics. Our data platform, TerraShed™, aggregates and integrates vast collections of scientific data from around the world. We use the data in TerraShed™ to predict the locations of compositional anomalies and to rigorously quantify how new data can decrease the uncertainty of our predictions. These models – our Machine Prospector™ software – incorporate this value-of-information framework to guide our decisions of where to acquire land and what field data to collect, from geochemical sampling to airborne surveys to drilling campaigns.
As electric vehicles become widespread, many new mines will be needed; but before new deposits can be mined, they have to be discovered. Our objective is to find new ore deposits rich in critical battery materials. KoBold’s team combines the world’s top mineral explorers with an outstanding team of data scientists and software engineers. We are building a portfolio of assets, and we will monetize those assets after increasing the value through discovery and definition of resources and reserves.
KoBold Metals is backed by Andreessen Horowitz, Breakthrough Energy Ventures and Equinor.
About the position
The Director of Corporate Development (DCD) will report directly to the CEO and work on the most important activities informing corporate strategy, finance, and business development.
You will lead economic evaluation of global battery-metal markets, competitor analysis, assessment of jurisdictional and geopolitical risk, and techno-economic analyses of new technologies. You will be responsible for KoBold’s financial scenario planning, which will inform everything from financing strategy to resource planning and allocation. You will also work with the CEO on communications with the Board of Directors, counterparties, investors, and partners.
Further, to implement our strategy, you will establish yourself at the center of global deal flow for battery metals. You will develop a comprehensive view of resource projects around the world, identify the highest-priority opportunities and initiate transactions, and will help lead negotiation of new data-sharing partnerships as well as joint-venture project development deals.
Responsibilities
The Director of Corporate Development will be responsible for:
- Aggregating existing and conducting original market analyses on the economics of battery materials
- Owning the corporate planning model that will inform corporate finance, resource planning, and project development
- Working with the CEO to prepare materials for the Board of Directors as well for other investors or partners
- Developing a global view of battery metals opportunities and using economic analyses to inform our global exploration strategy
- Generating deal flow of potential projects and effectively screening opportunities according to KoBold’s strategy
- Developing detailed assessments of potential acquisitions, including economic modeling and considerations of land tenure, regulatory matters, and other above-ground risks
- Negotiating commercial terms with counterparties and leading transactions through completion
Once KoBold has a mature portfolio, the DCD is expected to take on significant roles in establishing offtake agreements and identifying potential asset buyers.
Qualifications
A great Director of Corporate Development candidate will have:
- Minimum 4+ years work experience at a startup, investment firm, or top professional services firm
- Expertise in building financial models
- A high standard of rigor in due diligence and enjoyment in getting the details right
- Experience with and/or strong intuition for global market dynamics
- Track record of working with technical experts
- BA/BS in the physical sciences, engineering, mathematics, or economics (advanced degree will be a plus)
- Insatiable intellectual curiosity
It is helpful but not required to have:
- Experience with the Python programming language
- Experience at a natural resource exploration, development, and/or operating company (metals & mining or oil & gas)
- Experience with corporate or asset transactions
KoBold Metals is an equal opportunity workplace and an affirmative action employer. We are committed to equal employment opportunity for people of any race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, marital status, national origin, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, or veteran status.
This position is full-time, exempt.
Location: KoBold Metals is based in Berkeley, CA; partial remote work is an option.
Interested applicants should submit CVs to info@koboldmetals.com.
Post-doc position: Applying Artificial Intelligence for a Sustainable Energy Future
Principal Investigator
Jef Caers, Professor of Geological Sciences, Stanford University
Director, Stanford Center for Earth Resource Forecasting
Postdoctoral position, Artificial Intelligence for a Sustainable Energy Future
Sponsoring Company
KoBold Metals
We are seeking a postdoctoral researcher for a 2-year position to research the application of artificial intelligence for the exploration of critical battery metals. The candidate will collaborate directly with KoBold Metals (KoBold), a San Francisco Bay Area company backed by Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, and Andreseen Horowitz that is developing artificial intelligence to improve the efficacy, efficiency, and sustainability of critical mineral exploration and development.
The project will focus on sequential decision making under uncertainty using the latest research in intelligent systems and agents as well as predictive modeling based on uncertainty quantification with sparse and fuzzy data. This research requires a disciplinary background in computer science, data science, statistics, and/or mathematics; a background in geosciences is not necessary. The candidate will also need experience with databases and Python scripting. We are looking for candidates with:
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- Demonstrated computer science expertise in artificial intelligence, data science programming, big data manipulation, and cloud computing
- Having worked on real data with quantified uncertainty
- Research as demonstrated through publications in scientific journals
Summary of research project
Battery metals are to the renewable energy and electric vehicle revolutions what iron was to the iron-age and what coal was to the industrial revolution. As electric vehicles and renewable electricity become widespread, many new mines will be needed; but before new deposits can be mined, they have to be discovered. In collaboration with the Stanford Center for Earth Resources Forecasting, KoBold is building AI systems to find new deposits rich in critical battery materials by combining the world’s top mineral explorers with an outstanding team of data scientists and software engineers.
Scientific discovery works through a series of experiments with Bayesian updating. In this manner, mineral exploration requires careful planning of sequential data acquisition over large areas to fill in sparse datasets. This project will develop an artificial intelligent agent termed the Intelligent Prospector that assists humans in the optimal planning of geophysical and geochemical data acquisitions campaigns. The intelligent agent will interact with KoBold’s Machine Prospector® technology, developed to provide quantified uncertainty from existing data sets. We envision the Intelligent Prospector will use the latest developments in AI such as Partially Observed Markov Decision Processes, Reinforcement Learning, and Monte Carlo Tree Search Methods to accelerate discovery and thereby reach the ultimate goal of a battery-powered sustainable energy future.
Send a CV, statement and a list of three referees to jcaers@stanford.edu.
In your statement, please elaborate explicitly on the following questions:
- What expertise in AI do you have that can contribute to developing intelligent systems?
- What is your level of python programming as provided through examples?
- What are real data cases and problems that you have worked on?
Because of COVID-19, we can only consider those applicants who reside in the United States.
Geology Data Analyst (temporary, part time consultant)
About the company
KoBold Metals is using machine learning, and other scientific computing techniques, to explore for the critical materials needed to build electric vehicles and personal electronics. As electric vehicles become widespread, many new mines will be needed; but before new deposits can be mined, they have to be discovered. Our objective is to find new ore deposits rich in critical battery materials.
About the project
For this project, you will process unstructured data to help build a worldwide geospatial dataset that underlies our digital exploration program. You will support KoBold’s data scientists to locate, digitize, tabulate, georeference, and discover valuable geologic data. You will use your knowledge of earth science to properly categorize and extract geologic data into structured text and geospatial file formats.
This is a temporary, hourly contract position with a pay rate starting at $20/hr. This position is fully remote, although availability to travel to KoBold’s Berkeley office is a plus. We require a minimum availability of 15 hours per week, however this can be increased if the contractor has the availability/bandwidth.
Commitment and Requirements
- Have availability to work at least 15 hours a week, check-in with the project team daily (via Slack), and attend check-in meetings (over Zoom) twice a week.
- Access to a personal computer that can simultaneously run QGIS and Zoom, as well as process large amounts of data.
Responsibilities
The Geology Data Analyst will:
- Work on a project-by-project basis to digitize geologic features into vector datasets, and georeference map images using QGIS.
- Deliver high-quality geophysical, geochemical, geologic, and geographic data tabulated from assessment reports and maps.
- Responsible for quality control over your work outputs using third party and proprietary tools.
Qualifications
A great Geology Data Analyst will have:
- A bachelor’s degree (or in-progress degree) in an Earth Science field (geology, earth science, geophysics, geochemistry, etc.).
- Initiative to work independently and problem-solve solutions.
- Experience using QGIS and a basic understanding of vector, raster, and text file formats.
- Acute attention to detail and strong organizational skills.
- Comfortable using QGIS and spreadsheet software on repetitive tasks.
It is helpful but not required to have:
- Understanding of mapping units and format, such as longitude, minutes, UTM, datum, and projection.
- Prior coursework using QGIS for field mapping.
- Some experience coding in scientific languages such as python, R or MATLAB.
Interested applicants should contact data.contractor@koboldmetals.com.
Data Engineer (All Levels)
About the company
KoBold Metals is using machine learning and other scientific computing techniques to explore for the critical materials needed to build electric vehicles and personal electronics. Many new mines will be needed if electric vehicles are to become widespread; but before new ore deposits can be mined, they have to be found. Our objective is to discover new ore deposits rich in critical battery materials. KoBold’s team combines the world’s top mineral explorers with an outstanding team of data scientists and software engineers.
Our data platform, TerraShed™, aggregates and structures vast collections of scientific data from around the world. We use the data in TerraShed™ to predict the locations of anomalies beneath the earth’s surface and to rigorously quantify how new data can decrease the uncertainty of our predictions. These models – our Machine Prospector™ software – guide our decisions of where to acquire land, what field data to collect, and where to drill to discover new ore deposits.
KoBold Metals is backed by Andreessen Horowitz, Breakthrough Energy Ventures and Equinor.
About the position
In this role, you will help develop software to accelerate discovery of battery metals, and you will help build a worldwide geoscience data system that underlies our digital exploration program. You will join an outstanding team of data scientists and engineers and will work closely with KoBold’s world-renowned geoscientists. Ultimately, your role is to help build data tools to solve challenging scientific problems and to enable the widespread adoption of electric vehicles. As one of the early members of this team, you will help build these tools from the ground up.
Responsibilities
The Data Engineer will:
- Help develop KoBold’s proprietary data system, TerraShed™, and modeling software, Machine Prospector™
- Design components of the data system to ingest, store, process, and access a large volume and wide variety of geoscience data for both predictive modeling and visualization
- Integrate diverse and messy geophysical, geochemical, geologic, and geographic data from around the world into a well-structured proprietary database
- Create tools for ingesting unstructured datasets and extracting key features
- Work with data scientists to implement and improve algorithms and predictive models
- Develop interactive visualizations to enable the data team and geoscience teams to rapidly view and interrogate the model results and underlying data
Qualifications
A great Data Engineer candidate will have skills that include:
- Proficiency in Python
- A technical stack that includes Postgres/PostGIS and Elasticsearch
- Experience storing and processing diverse datasets in both relational and no-sql architectures
- Experience with data processing technologies such as Airflow, Spark, and Dask
- Experience creating/managing large databases and pipelines
- Experience with setting up and deploying systems on AWS
A great Data Engineer candidate will also be:
- Excited to work on a wide range of problems, and to take on a wide range of responsibilities, learning new tech tools whenever needed
- Highly intellectually curious and eager to learn from technical experts who aren’t software people
- Keen not just to build products, but to figure out what product to build to best achieve the business objectives of the company
- Highly self-motivated and autonomous, able to effectively structure one’s own work, make realistic time estimates, and communicate well as one progresses
- Comfortable with a fast-changing work environment
- Careful to get the details right
It is helpful but not required to have:
- Experience with geospatial databases, analyses, and/or visualizations
- Experience with Flask or similar web frameworks
- Experience with planning and implementing information security measures
- A bachelor’s degree or higher in the physical sciences, engineering, computer science, or mathematics
Level: KoBold is willing to consider candidates at the Data Engineer, Senior Data Engineer, or Staff Data Engineer/Architect levels, with commensurate compensation. This is an individual contributor role. This position requires a minimum of 2 years of relevant full-time professional work experience; recent bachelor’s/master’s candidates are unlikely to be competitive.
KoBold Metals is an equal opportunity workplace and an affirmative action employer. We are committed to equal employment opportunity for people of any race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, marital status, national origin, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, or veteran status.
This position is full-time, exempt.
Location: Remote, within the U.S. or Canada. Candidates who have previously worked in remote roles should describe this in their cover letters. Must be authorized to work in the U.S. or Canada.
Interested applicants should contact jobs@koboldmetals.com.
Senior Infrastructure Engineer
About the company
KoBold Metals is using machine learning and other scientific computing techniques to explore for the critical materials needed to build electric vehicles and personal electronics. Many new mines will be needed if electric vehicles are to become widespread; but before new ore deposits can be mined, they have to be found. Our objective is to discover new ore deposits rich in critical battery materials. KoBold’s team combines the world’s top mineral explorers with an outstanding team of data scientists and software engineers.
Our data platform, TerraShed™, aggregates and structures vast collections of scientific data from around the world. We use the data in TerraShed™ to predict the locations of anomalies beneath the earth’s surface and to rigorously quantify how new data can decrease the uncertainty of our predictions. These models – our Machine Prospector® software – guide our decisions of where to acquire land, what field data to collect, and where to drill to discover new ore deposits.
KoBold Metals is backed by Andreessen Horowitz, Breakthrough Energy Ventures and Equinor.
About the position
In this role, you will architect and deploy software to accelerate discovery of battery metals and to help construct the global geoscience data system that underlies our digital exploration program. You will join an outstanding team of data scientists and engineers and will work closely with KoBold’s world-renowned geoscientists. You will be responsible for helping us build reliable and secure infrastructure while contributing broadly across our technology stack. Ultimately, your role is to help build data tools to solve challenging scientific problems and to enable the widespread adoption of electric vehicles. As one of the early members of this team, you will help build these tools from the ground up.
Responsibilities
The Senior Infrastructure Engineer will:
- Help develop KoBold’s proprietary data system, TerraShed™, and modeling software, Machine Prospector®
- Design and implement infrastructure for distributed parallel ML and scientific computing
- Design, implement, and maintain security protocols for highly proprietary data
- Design components of the data system to ingest, store, process, and access a large volume and wide variety of geoscience data for both predictive modeling and visualization
Qualifications
A great Senior Infrastructure Engineer candidate will have:
- Expertise in at least one programming language (KoBold’s primary language is Python, but a candidate with expertise in, e.g., Go or Ruby will still be competitive)
- Experience designing and deploying systems in the cloud on AWS, GCP, or Azure and defining those systems with infrastructure-as-code tools such as Terraform or CloudFormation
- Experience storing and processing diverse datasets in both relational and NoSQL architectures
- Experience designing and deploying containerized solutions
- Experience building systems to develop, deploy, and instrument machine learning models
- A development style that favors rapid incremental improvements that can be continuously delivered, rather than large sweeping changes with major roll-outs
- Prior responsibility for planning and implementing information security measures, including monitoring and alerting
A great Senior Infrastructure Engineer candidate will also be:
- Motivated to build and maintain systems that meet challenging infrastructure requirements and to work closely with engineering colleagues on a broad set of infrastructure problems
- Excited to work on a wide range of problems, and to take on a wide range of responsibilities, learning new tech tools whenever needed
- Highly intellectually curious and eager to learn from technical experts who aren’t solely software engineers
- Keen not just to build products, but to figure out what product to build to best achieve the business objectives of the company
- Highly self-motivated and autonomous, able to effectively structure one’s own work, make realistic time estimates, and communicate well as one progresses
- Focused on making decisions about risk based on practical considerations and a deep understanding of the company’s business, rather than on compliance checklists or blind adherence to a preferred set of practices
- A clear technical writer, reflecting a deep understanding of what guidance users/colleagues need to effectively and efficiently use the systems you build
- Comfortable with a fast-changing work environment
- Careful to get the details right
It is helpful but not required to have:
- Experience with geospatial databases, analyses, and/or visualizations
- Experience with Kubernetes
- A bachelor’s degree or higher in the physical sciences, engineering, computer science, or mathematics
Level: KoBold is happy to consider candidates varying experience levels, with commensurate compensation. This is an individual contributor role. This position requires a minimum of 4 years of relevant full-time professional work experience; recent bachelor’s/master’s candidates are unlikely to be competitive.
KoBold Metals is an equal opportunity workplace and an affirmative action employer. We are committed to equal employment opportunity for people of any race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, marital status, national origin, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, or veteran status.
This position is full-time, exempt.
Location: Any location within the U.S. or Canada. Must be authorized to work in the U.S. or Canada. Candidates who have previously worked in remote roles should describe this in their cover letters. KoBold has its primary technology office in Berkeley, CA, and also has offices in Vancouver, BC and Madison, WI; however, we are a remote-first company and our technology and our geoscience teams are highly distributed.
Interested applicants should send a resume to jobs@koboldmetals.com.
Data Engineer – Geospatial (All Levels)
About the company
KoBold Metals is using machine learning and other scientific computing techniques to explore for the critical materials needed to build electric vehicles and personal electronics. Many new mines will be needed if electric vehicles are to become widespread; but before new ore deposits can be mined, they have to be found. Our objective is to discover new ore deposits rich in critical battery materials. KoBold’s team combines the world’s top mineral explorers with an outstanding team of data scientists and software engineers.
Our data platform, TerraShed™, aggregates and structures vast collections of scientific data from around the world. We use the data in TerraShed™ to predict the locations of anomalies beneath the earth’s surface and to rigorously quantify how new data can decrease the uncertainty of our predictions. These models – our Machine Prospector™ software – guide our decisions of where to acquire land, what field data to collect, and where to drill to discover new ore deposits.
KoBold Metals is backed by Andreessen Horowitz, Breakthrough Energy Ventures and Equinor.
About the position
In this role, you will help develop software to accelerate discovery of battery metals, and you will help build the worldwide geoscience data system that underlies our digital exploration program. You will join an outstanding team of data scientists and engineers and will work closely with KoBold’s world-renowned geoscientists. Your role will be a key link between the way that data scientists and geologists interact with our data system. Ultimately, your role is to help build data tools to solve challenging scientific problems and to enable the widespread adoption of electric vehicles. As one of the early members of this team, you will help build these tools from the ground up.
Responsibilities
The Geospatial Data Engineer will:
- Design aspects of the TerraShed™ data system to ingest, store, and quickly process and access a wide variety of geoscience data
- Integrate diverse and messy geophysical, geochemical, geologic, and geographic data from around the world into a well-structured proprietary data system
- Create tools for ingesting unstructured datasets and extracting key features
- Develop methods and tools to enable data scientists and geoscientists to rapidly view and interrogate both model results and underlying data
Qualifications
A great Geospatial Data Engineer candidate will have skills and knowledge that include:
- Proficiency in Python
- Proficiency in Postgres/PostGIS
- Familiarity with open-source libraries for manipulating (e.g., GDAL, ogr), visualizing (e.g., leaflet), and serving (e.g., WMS) geospatial data
- Familiarity with desktop software used for geospatial visualization and analysis and experience integrating these tools with other data systems, e.g., through custom plugins
- Familiarity with how geologists use 2D and 3D geospatial data, including both analyses based on 2D GIS projects as well as 3D modeling
- Experience with setting up and deploying systems on AWS
A great Geospatial Data Engineer candidate will also be:
- Excited to work on a wide range of problems, and to take on a wide range of responsibilities, learning new tech tools whenever needed
- Highly intellectually curious and eager to learn from technical experts who aren’t software people
- Keen not just to build products, but to figure out what product to build to best achieve the business objectives of the company
- Highly self-motivated and autonomous, able to effectively structure one’s own work, make realistic time estimates, and communicate well as one progresses
- Comfortable with a fast-changing work environment
- Careful to get the details right
It is helpful but not required to have:
- A bachelor’s degree or higher in geoscience, other physical sciences, engineering, computer science, or mathematics
- Experience with Flask or similar web frameworks
Level: KoBold is willing to consider candidates at the Data Engineer, Senior Data Engineer, or Staff Data Engineer/Architect levels, with commensurate compensation. This is an individual contributor role. This position requires a minimum of 2 years of relevant full-time professional work experience; recent bachelor’s/master’s candidates are unlikely to be competitive.
KoBold Metals is an equal opportunity workplace and an affirmative action employer. We are committed to equal employment opportunity for people of any race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, marital status, national origin, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, or veteran status.
This position is full-time, exempt.
Location: Remote, within the U.S. or Canada. Candidates who have previously worked in remote roles should describe this in their cover letters. Must be authorized to work in the U.S. or Canada.
Interested applicants should contact jobs@koboldmetals.com.
Principal Geoscientist (Geologist, Geochemist, or Geophysicist)
About the company
KoBold Metals is a mineral exploration company created to increase the ethical supply of critical materials, including Ni, Co, Cu, and Li, that are needed to build electric vehicles and renewable energy storage. Many new mines will be needed if electric vehicles are to become widespread, but before new ore deposits can be mined, they must be found.
KoBold’s objective is to make more discoveries with fewer failures by drawing on both world-class expertise in exploration geoscience and machine learning and other scientific computing techniques. KoBold employees’ equity ownership in the company enables everyone on the team to share in the value we create through our discoveries.
Our technology includes a comprehensive data system and a broad suite of analytical tools that helps guide our decisions from concept generation to drill testing to resource expansion to mine development and operations. Our data platform, TerraShed™, aggregates, structures, and QCs vast collections of scientific data and makes it rapidly available for visualization and analysis. Our suite of algorithms, Machine Prospector®, interrogates that data with a range of techniques —from computer vision to full-physics joint inversions to ensemble machine learning—to generate features that are tied to ore-forming processes or that tease out subtle signals in the data. We use those features to predict subsurface composition, permissive structural and stratigraphic settings, or other important controls on mineralization.
Our models are designed to rigorously quantify the uncertainty in our predictions and to estimate how different ways of collecting incremental data will decrease the uncertainty in our knowledge of the subsurface. These insights inform our decisions of where to acquire mineral properties, what data to collect in the field, and where to drill to discover new ore deposits. And our technology system enables us to use new information in the field to refine our models and adapt our field programs in real time.
Our team includes top mineral explorers who collectively have more than 300 years of exploration experience and have made nearly 20 discoveries. KoBold geoscientists work on exploration teams jointly with outstanding data scientists, who have Ph.D.’s in physics, math, materials science, and geophysics. And our technology backbone has been built from scratch by our team of software engineers who are alumni of top Silicon Valley tech companies.
KoBold Metals is backed by Andreessen Horowitz, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, and Equinor.
About the position
This role has several important components: You will lead evaluations of potential properties for acquisition, generate targets, and design and oversee field programs from target definition through to resource expansion. You will work closely with data scientists to generate and implement analytical methods in our software platform. You will advise exploration teams across the company in your area of expertise. And you will help shape the technical road map of the company through leading-edge thinking on exploration methods, the science of ore deposit formation, and priority areas and deposit styles.
You will work directly with our senior technical advisors, academic collaborators, and external experts, and you will work with the executive team on making the investment case for acquisitions, field programs, and partnerships.
Ultimately, your role is to help KoBold make valuable discoveries by generating novel ideas of where and how to explore and put them into practice through rigorous analysis of geoscientific data and close collaboration with KoBold data scientists.
Responsibilities
The Principal Geoscientist will:
- Demonstrate in all activities a commitment to the highest standards in health and safety, environment, and community relations
- Rigorously analyze geoscientific datasets across a range of scales from provinces to prospects to determine exploration potential and to identify, rank, and prioritize exploration targets
- Help to shape our exploration strategy, area selection, and evaluation of each project and set of targets through exceptional knowledge of the relevant ore system and exploration methods
- Identify or develop innovative analytical methods and work with KoBold data scientists and software engineers to implement them in our software and to apply them to current or potential projects
- Design and oversee field programs ranging from geological mapping and sampling of grass roots prospects through to large drilling programs on advanced projects
- Devise data acquisition programs that improve upon current leading industry practice by leveraging KoBold’s technological capabilities and see them through to successful implementation in KoBold field programs
- Provide technical guidance to KoBold and our JV partners’ in-country project teams
Qualifications
A great Principal Geoscientist candidate will have
Exploration experience:
- A proven track record of discovery, as a leader or member of a team that found an ore deposit
- Excellence in generative analysis ranging from new concepts to integration, interpretation, and modeling of large datasets
- Excellent field skills and experience working across a range of project stages from grassroots prospects through to advanced projects with significant drilling and other geoscience data
Technical knowledge:
- A deep understanding of one or more ore deposit types, preferably including sediment-hosted stratiform copper deposits and/or magmatic sulfide deposits
- A high level of specific expertise in at least one specific subject area, such as sediment-hosted or orthomagmatic ore systems or the collection and analysis of geochemical or classes of geophysical data
- Broad expertise in the geochemistry, geophysics, and geology of ore genesis with practical application to sediment-hosted, magmatic-hydrothermal, and/or magmatic sulfide systems
Other key skills and work practices:
- Proficiency in exploration software packages such as QGIS/ArcGIS, Leapfrog, and ioGAS
- Demonstrated leadership skills including the ability to motivate and inspire others, to share ownership and responsibility for project outcomes, and to work effectively in collaborative, interdisciplinary teams
- A strong track record of coaching and training geoscientists of varying experience, educational backgrounds and cultures in leading-practice mineral exploration
- Demonstrated commitment to high standards of health and safety in the workplace
Training and work experience:
- A minimum of 15 years experience in the mineral exploration industry
- An M.Sc. or higher degree in a geoscience field or in a related physical science
- Insatiable intellectual curiosity
It is preferred but not required to have:
- A Ph.D. in a geoscience field or related physical science
- Research experience or other published work on exploration methods or ore-forming processes
- Working knowledge of one programming or scripting language (e.g., Python, R, C/C++) and experience with scientific computing
- Excellence in statistical or quantitative methods for analyzing geoscientific data
KoBold Metals is an equal opportunity workplace and an affirmative action employer. We are committed to equal employment opportunity for people of any race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, marital status, national origin, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, or veteran status.
This position is full-time, exempt.
Location: We are open to candidates anywhere in the world. KoBold Metals has offices in Vancouver, BC and Berkeley, CA, and a presence in Zambia.
Interested applicants should send a resume to jobs@koboldmetals.com. Candidates should state whether they currently have authorization to work in the US or Canada.
Data Scientist
About the company
KoBold Metals is a mineral exploration company that uses machine learning and other scientific computing techniques to increase the ethical supply of critical materials (i.e., Ni, Co, Cu, Li, Pt, and Pd) needed to build electric vehicles and renewable energy storage. Many new mines will be needed if electric vehicles are to become widespread, but before new ore deposits can be mined, they must be found.
KoBold is the first full-stack exploration company. We combine the world’s top mineral explorers with an outstanding team of data scientists and software engineers to bring a comprehensive skill set to bear on exploration. Our technology has been built from scratch by alumni of top Silicon Valley software companies to guide every aspect of mineral exploration as well as mine development and operations. Our team consists of dozens of PhDs in physics, math, materials science, and geophysics, as well as top mineral explorers who collectively have >300 years of exploration experience and have made nearly 20 discoveries.
Our data platform, TerraShed™, aggregates and structures vast collections of scientific data. And Machine Prospector®, our suite of algorithms, interrogates that data with a range of techniques—from computer vision, to full-physics joint inversions, to ensemble machine learning—to make statistically rigorous predictions of the composition of the subsurface.
The careful use of statistics is an essential component of exploration and mine development given the data’s inherent uncertainty, and Machine Prospector® rigorously quantifies how new data will decrease prediction uncertainty. These predictive models are used to guide our decisions of where to acquire land, what field data to collect, and where to drill to discover new ore deposits.
KoBold Metals is backed by Andreessen Horowitz, Breakthrough Energy Ventures and Equinor.
About the position
In this role, you will build predictive models and apply a wide range of scientific computing, statistical, and physics-based methods to find places where there is evidence of ore-forming processes at work and to predict the locations of ore-grade mineralization in 2D and 3D. You will help build a worldwide dataset that underlies our exploration program, with careful attention to identifying and quantifying uncertainty in the data and in our predictions. You will be creating models and developing software to accelerate discovery of critical battery metals.
You will join an outstanding team of data scientists and engineers and will work closely with KoBold’s world-renowned geoscientists to incorporate our best understanding of the chemical and physical processes that create ore deposits. Working with your geoscience colleagues, you will create 2D and 3D geologic predictions, identify exploration targets, design field programs to collect data, and use that data to reduce the uncertainty in our predictions and guide the next phase of field work.
Ultimately, your role is to help KoBold make valuable discoveries by building data tools to solve scientific problems. As one of the early members of this team, you will help build these tools from the ground up.
Responsibilities
The Data Scientist will:
- Help develop KoBold’s proprietary software exploration tools.
- Find and curate a wide variety of geospectral, geophysical, geochemical, geologic, and geographic data and integrate it into KoBold’s proprietary data system.
- Build models to make statistically valid predictions about the locations of compositional anomalies within the Earth’s crust.
- Create effective visualizations for evaluating model performance and enabling rapid interaction with the underlying data and key features.
- Develop and apply a range of data processing, statistical, and physics-based techniques to geoscientific data — from computer vision to geophysical inversions — and use the results to guide our targeting efforts and inform our acquisition and exploration decisions.
- Present to and collaborate with our external partners and stakeholders.
Qualifications
A great Data Scientist candidate will have:
Technical skills, including extensive experience with:
- Python’s data science packages and general software engineering practices.
- Collaborative software development (git), and familiarity with software engineering best practices like unit test / integration test suites, and CICD pipelines.
- SQL, as well as familiarity with non-relational databases.
- Cloud computing resources.
- Building a wide variety of predictive models, applying them to different problems, and evaluating and interpreting the results.
- Working with a broad range of types of data including data from physical systems.
- Geospatial analyses and visualizations.
Technical knowledge:
- Broad skills in and knowledge of applied statistics
- Substantial understanding of Machine Learning algorithms
Training and work experience:
- An advanced degree in the physical sciences, engineering, computer science, or mathematics. Candidates with backgrounds in geosciences or exploration geology are especially encouraged to apply.
- Post-degree work experience as a data scientist or data engineer (we are open to candidates who are senior or staff level as well as more junior candidates.
Work practices and motivation:
- Ability to take ownership and responsibility of large projects.
- Enjoys constantly learning such that you are and driving insights and innovations.
- Ability to explain technical problems to and collaborate on solutions with domain experts who aren’t software developers.
- Excitement about joining a fast-growing early-stage company, comfort with a dynamic work environment, and eagerness to take on a range of responsibilities.
- Ability to independently prioritize multiple tasks effectively.
It is also helpful but not required to have experience with:
- Creating machine learning models on geospatial data
- Geostatistics
- Image processing or computer vision
- Distributed computing applications for machine learning and other computations
- Containerization solutions
KoBold Metals is an equal opportunity workplace and an affirmative action employer. We are committed to equal employment opportunity for people of any race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, marital status, national origin, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, or veteran status.
This position is full-time, exempt.
Location: Remote from any location in the US or Canada.
Applicants should send a resume to jobs@koboldmetals.com.
Accountant (Part-Time)
About the company
KoBold Metals is a mineral exploration company that uses machine learning and other scientific computing techniques to increase the ethical supply of critical materials (i.e., Ni, Co, Cu, Li, Pt, and Pd) needed to build electric vehicles and renewable energy storage. Many new mines will be needed if electric vehicles are to become widespread, but before new ore deposits can be mined, they must be found.
KoBold is the first full-stack exploration company. We combine the world’s top mineral explorers with an outstanding team of data scientists and software engineers to bring a comprehensive skill set to bear on exploration. Our technology has been built from scratch by alumni of top Silicon Valley software companies to guide every aspect of mineral exploration as well as mine development and operations. Our team consists of dozens of PhDs in physics, math, materials science, and geophysics, as well as top mineral explorers who collectively have >300 years of exploration experience and have made nearly 20 discoveries.
KoBold Metals is backed by Andreessen Horowitz, Breakthrough Energy Ventures and Equinor.
About the position
This is a part-time remote role reporting to the Director of Finance and Operations. In this role, you will record and analyze accounting transactions, prepare financial reports and financial statements as well as provide support in miscellaneous areas of operations. Since KoBold is a small startup company, your role will be dynamic, requiring adjustments as the company grows. Work hours are flexible.
Responsibilities
The Accountant will:
- Prepare monthly and quarterly financial statements
- Maintain accounting records for subsidiaries
- Reconcile intercompany accounts
- Oversee time tracking for projects
- Prepare miscellaneous project reports
- Record accounting transactions and journal entries in Quickbooks Online
- Prepare bank and credit card reconciliations
- Perform reconciliations of noncash assets and liabilities
- Prepare annual filings for corporate entities
- Review payroll tax returns
- Provide onboarding for new employees and assist with other HR activities
- Organize and/or provide support for miscellaneous projects
- Oversee compliance training and documentation
- Provide support for recruiting new candidates
- Handle sensitive information in a confidential manner
- Determine what is needed to support company operations and proactively pursue it
Qualifications
The candidate must have:
- Bachelor’s degree in accounting plus two or more years experience in accounting
- Experience with Quickbooks Online
- Proficiency in spreadsheet-based analysis
- Strong organizational skills and attention to detail
- Ability to quickly learn new tools as needed
- A high degree of independence and the ability to work effectively with limited supervision
- Ability to troubleshoot critical issues in a timely fashion
- Interest in contributing broadly to the success of the company and eager to pitch in where needed
It is helpful but not required to have experience with:
- Financial statement audits
- Consolidated financial statements
- International accounting issues
KoBold Metals is an equal opportunity workplace and an affirmative action employer. We are committed to equal employment opportunity for people of any race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, marital status, national origin, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, or veteran status.
This position is part-time, 15-20 hours per week, with potential to grow over time given a candidate’s interests.
Location: KoBold Metals will consider applicants in any U.S. location who are interested in working remotely. CFO / CTO and Director of Finance and Operations are located in Birmingham, AL. The company’s main office is located in Berkeley, CA.
Interested applicants should send a resume and cover letter to admin@koboldmetals.com.
Administrative Assistant (Part-Time)
About the company
KoBold Metals is a mineral exploration company that uses machine learning and other scientific computing techniques to increase the ethical supply of critical materials (i.e., Ni, Co, Cu, Li, Pt, and Pd) needed to build electric vehicles and renewable energy storage. Many new mines will be needed if electric vehicles are to become widespread, but before new ore deposits can be mined, they must be found.
KoBold is the first full-stack exploration company. We combine the world’s top mineral explorers with an outstanding team of data scientists and software engineers to bring a comprehensive skill set to bear on exploration. Our technology has been built from scratch by alumni of top Silicon Valley software companies to guide every aspect of mineral exploration as well as mine development and operations. Our team consists of dozens of PhDs in physics, math, materials science, and geophysics, as well as top mineral explorers who collectively have >300 years of exploration experience and have made nearly 20 discoveries.
KoBold Metals is backed by Andreessen Horowitz, Breakthrough Energy Ventures and Equinor.
About the position
This is a part-time remote administrative support role reporting to the Director of Finance and Operations. You will provide direct support to all members of the team, specifically the CEO, CFO / CTO, and Director of Finance and Operations. Since KoBold is a small startup company, your role will be dynamic, requiring adjustments as the company grows. Work hours are flexible.
Responsibilities
The Administrative Assistant will:
- Provide support to team members
- Provide support for recruiting new candidates, including interview scheduling
- Provide onboarding for new employees and assist with other HR activities
- Organize and implement Board meetings and other office meetings and events
- Handle travel arrangements as needed
- Organize and/or provide support for miscellaneous projects
- Oversee compliance training and documentation
- Stock kitchen and office supplies (once our offices reopen)
- Handle sensitive information in a confidential manner
- Determine what is needed to support company operations and proactively pursue it
Qualifications
The candidate must have:
- Strong organizational skills and attention to detail
- Outstanding written and verbal communication skills
- Ability to quickly learn new tools as needed
- A high degree of independence and the ability to work effectively with limited supervision
- Ability to troubleshoot critical issues in a timely fashion
- Interest in contributing broadly to the success of the company and eager to pitch in where needed
It is helpful but not required to have experience with:
- Payroll and Human Resources
- Bookkeeping
- Quickbooks Online
KoBold Metals is an equal opportunity workplace and an affirmative action employer. We are committed to equal employment opportunity for people of any race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, marital status, national origin, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, or veteran status.
This position is part-time, 15-20 hours per week, with potential to grow over time given a candidate’s interests.
Location: KoBold Metals will consider applicants in any U.S. location who are interested in working remotely. CFO / CTO and Director of Finance and Operations are located in Birmingham, AL. The company’s main office is located in Berkeley, CA.
Interested applicants should send a resume to admin@koboldmetals.com.
Geologist
About the company
KoBold Metals is a mineral exploration company created to increase the ethical supply of critical materials, including Ni, Co, Cu, and Li, that are needed to build electric vehicles and renewable energy storage. Many new mines will be needed if electric vehicles are to become widespread, but before new ore deposits can be mined, they must be found.
KoBold’s objective is to make more discoveries with fewer failures by drawing on both world-class expertise in exploration geoscience and machine learning and other scientific computing techniques. KoBold employees’ equity ownership in the company enables everyone on the team to share in the value we create through our discoveries.
Our technology includes a comprehensive data system and a broad suite of analytical tools that helps guide our decisions from concept generation to drill testing to resource expansion to mine development and operations. Our data platform, TerraShed™, aggregates, structures, and QCs vast collections of scientific data and makes it rapidly available for visualization and analysis. Our suite of algorithms, Machine Prospector®, interrogates that data with a range of techniques —from computer vision to full-physics joint inversions to ensemble machine learning—to generate features that are tied to ore-forming processes or that tease out subtle signals in the data. We use those features to predict subsurface composition, permissive structural and stratigraphic settings, or other important controls on mineralization.
Our models are designed to rigorously quantify the uncertainty in our predictions and to estimate how different ways of collecting incremental data will decrease the uncertainty in our knowledge of the subsurface. These insights inform our decisions of where to acquire mineral properties, what data to collect in the field, and where to drill to discover new ore deposits. And our technology system enables us to use new information in the field to refine our models and adapt our field programs in real time.
Our team includes top mineral explorers who collectively have more than 300 years of exploration experience and have made nearly 20 discoveries. KoBold geoscientists work on exploration teams jointly with outstanding data scientists, who have Ph.D.’s in physics, math, materials science, and geophysics. And our technology backbone has been built from scratch by our team of software engineers who are alumni of top Silicon Valley tech companies.
KoBold Metals is backed by Andreessen Horowitz, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, and Equinor.
About the position
KoBold is looking for a highly motivated and experienced Geologist who will be part of our multidisciplinary exploration team, reporting to the VP Exploration. In this role, you will be part of the core team responsible for identifying targets, conducting rigorous geologic assessments of ground for potential claim-staking or acquisition, and performing geologic analysis as well as planning and conducting field work on our properties. The Geologist will also work closely with our team of data scientists and software engineers to support development of our internal software tools and to evaluate prospects generated by our proprietary system.
Responsibilities
The Geologist will:
- Compile and evaluate various datasets at regional to prospect scales and conduct assessments of exploration potential
- Review and evaluate geoscience data provided by potential sellers of assets or joint venture partners
- Perform a range of geological analyses and work collaboratively with data scientists
- Contribute to the design, budgeting, permitting, and execution of field programs
Qualifications
A great Geologist candidate will have:
- An advanced degree in geoscience; a Ph.D. is preferred
- A minimum of 2 years experience in exploration geology or economic geology, not including graduate study
- An excellent understanding of geologic fundamentals, ore systems, and mineral exploration
- Experience evaluating ore-deposit prospectivity using field techniques and geospatial software, and an interest in doing both field and desktop work
- Insatiable intellectual curiosity
It is preferred but not required to have:
- Knowledge of geostatistics and coding (Python)
- Proficiency in QGIS, Leapfrog, and ioGAS
- Experience with magmatic sulfide and/or sediment-hosted copper systems
KoBold Metals is an equal opportunity workplace and an affirmative action employer. We are committed to equal employment opportunity for people of any race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, marital status, national origin, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, or veteran status.
This position is full-time, exempt.
Location: The candidate will live and work in either the USA or Canada. Although KoBold has offices in Berkeley and Vancouver, the candidate may be required to work from their home location.
Applicants should send a resume to jobs@koboldmetals.com.
GIS Data Specialist
About the company
KoBold Metals is a mineral exploration company that uses machine learning and other scientific computing techniques to increase the ethical supply of critical materials (i.e., Ni, Co, Cu, Li, Pt, and Pd) needed to build electric vehicles and renewable energy storage. Many new mines will be needed if electric vehicles are to become widespread, but before new ore deposits can be mined, they must be found.
KoBold is the first full-stack exploration company. We combine the world’s top mineral explorers with an outstanding team of data scientists and software engineers to bring a comprehensive skill set to bear on exploration. Our technology has been built from scratch by alumni of top Silicon Valley software companies to guide every aspect of mineral exploration as well as mine development and operations. Our team consists of dozens of PhDs in physics, math, materials science, and geophysics, as well as top mineral explorers who collectively have >300 years of exploration experience and have made nearly 20 discoveries.
Our data platform, TerraShed™, aggregates and structures vast collections of scientific data. And Machine Prospector®, our suite of algorithms, interrogates that data with a range of techniques—from computer vision, to full-physics joint inversions, to ensemble machine learning—to make statistically rigorous predictions of the composition of the subsurface.
The careful use of statistics is an essential component of exploration and mine development given the data’s inherent uncertainty, and Machine Prospector® rigorously quantifies how new data will decrease prediction uncertainty. These predictive models are used to guide our decisions of where to acquire land, what field data to collect, and where to drill to discover new ore deposits.
KoBold Metals is backed by Andreessen Horowitz, Breakthrough Energy Ventures and Equinor.
About the position
KoBold is looking for a highly motivated GIS Data Specialist to be part of our multidisciplinary exploration team. In this role you will be responsible for curating geoscientific datasets and using them to build well-organized and styled GIS projects to support our exploration and scientific discovery efforts. You will strive for the highest standard of quality in obtaining and curating new datasets for TerraShed™ so that they are readily available to the rest of the KoBold team. You will work on the cutting edge of geospatial technology, taking it upon yourself to master software features and help our entire team level up. And you will do all of this in a startup with a rapidly-growing technological platform, working closely with our team of geoscientists, data scientists, and software engineers.
Responsibilities
The GIS Data Specialist will:
- Aggregate, QA, organize, and style spatial data from diverse sources
- Design and maintain cloud-based, high-quality, performant GIS projects shared across multiple members of the exploration team
- Discover and ingest a wide variety of geologic, geophysical, geochemical, and geographic data with appropriate metadata into KoBold’s proprietary database TerraShed™
- Georeference and digitize maps and other images, and build training datasets for machine learning models
- Solve spatial and GIS application data challenges, such as coordinate system registrations and transforming file types
- Independently analyze, troubleshoot, research, and resolve GIS application problems
- Provide technical QGIS assistance to colleagues, internal training, and data policy guidance
Qualifications
A great GIS Data Specialist candidate will have:
Technical knowledge and skills:
- Strong proficiency with QGIS and/or ArcGIS
- Strong knowledge of geospatial coordinate reference systems
- Familiarity with geospatial data types, including open-source and proprietary vector and raster data formats
Training and work experience:
- A bachelor’s degree or substantial coursework in geology or a related discipline
- At least 2 years work experience using QGIS and ESRI GIS suite, with a preference for experience working with geological, geochemical, and geophysical data in the mining industry
Work practices and motivation:
- Excellent attention to detail, organization skills, and listening skills
- Enthusiasm for cataloging and curating data
- Eagerness to learn and to use new technologies
- Ability to prioritize multiple tasks effectively
- Extreme discomfort toward bad or inconsistent data
It is helpful but not required to have experience with:
- SQL databases
- Cloud storage
- Work in a software-engineering environment
- Python, or another programming language
- Leapfrog, GOCAD, or other 3D visualization package
KoBold Metals is an equal opportunity workplace and an affirmative action employer. We are committed to equal employment opportunity for people of any race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, marital status, national origin, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, or veteran status.
This position is full-time, exempt.
Location: Remote from any location in the US or Canada.
Applicants should send a resume to jobs@koboldmetals.com.
Senior/Principal Exploration Geophysicist
About the company
KoBold Metals is a mineral exploration company created to increase the ethical supply of critical materials, including Ni, Co, Cu, and Li, that are needed to build electric vehicles and renewable energy storage. Many new mines will be needed if electric vehicles are to become widespread, but before new ore deposits can be mined, they must be found.
KoBold’s objective is to make more discoveries with fewer failures by drawing on both world-class expertise in exploration geoscience and machine learning and other scientific computing techniques. KoBold employees’ equity ownership in the company enables everyone on the team to share in the value we create through our discoveries.
Our technology includes a comprehensive data system and a broad suite of analytical tools that helps guide our decisions from concept generation to drill testing to resource expansion to mine development and operations. Our data platform, TerraShed™, aggregates, structures, and QCs vast collections of scientific data and makes it rapidly available for visualization and analysis. Our suite of algorithms, Machine Prospector®, interrogates that data with a range of techniques —from computer vision to full-physics joint inversions to ensemble machine learning—to generate features that are tied to ore-forming processes or that tease out subtle signals in the data. We use those features to predict subsurface composition, permissive structural and stratigraphic settings, or other important controls on mineralization.
Our models are designed to rigorously quantify the uncertainty in our predictions and to estimate how different ways of collecting incremental data will decrease the uncertainty in our knowledge of the subsurface. These insights inform our decisions of where to acquire mineral properties, what data to collect in the field, and where to drill to discover new ore deposits. And our technology system enables us to use new information in the field to refine our models and adapt our field programs in real time.
Our team includes top mineral explorers who collectively have more than 300 years of exploration experience and have made nearly 20 discoveries. KoBold geoscientists work on exploration teams jointly with outstanding data scientists, who have Ph.D.s in physics, math, materials science, and geophysics. And our technology backbone has been built from scratch by our team of software engineers who are alumni of top Silicon Valley tech companies.
KoBold Metals is backed by Andreessen Horowitz, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, and Equinor.
About the position
This role is for a geophysicist with expertise in modeling geophysical data for exploration who seeks to develop new and more effective ways of extracting geologic insight from potential field and electromagnetic data.
This role has several important components: You will design and oversee geophysical data collection and analyze geophysical data for KoBold projects and potential acquisitions. You will work closely with data scientists to generate and implement analytical methods in our software. You will advise exploration teams across the company in your areas of expertise. And you will help shape the technical road map of the company through leading-edge thinking on data acquisition and analysis methods.
You will work directly with our senior technical advisors, academic collaborators, and external experts on developing new methods; you will work with contractors and JV partners on field programs; and you will work with the executive team on making the investment case for acquisitions, field programs, and partnerships.
Ultimately, your role is to help KoBold make valuable discoveries through rigorous collection and analysis of geophysical data and by generating novel ideas of how to explore and putting them into practice in collaboration with KoBold geologists and data scientists.
Responsibilities
The Exploration Geophysicist will:
- Design geophysical surveys to generate and test concepts on KoBold exploration properties
- Source, select, and oversee contractors to collect geophysical data
- Carefully quality control and process data, and develop and implement both automated and manual methods for improving the data handling steps that precede interpretation
- Rigorously analyze geophysical data for existing and potential KoBold projects as part of integrated teams with KoBold geologists and data scientists and integrated evaluations that simultaneously draw upon geophysical, geochemical, and geological data
- Draw on these analyses to propose projects, evaluate potential exploration targets, shape our exploration strategy and project selection
- Plan and budget exploration programs with careful consideration and quantification of the value to be obtained from incremental data collection
- Advise colleagues across the company on analytical methods for geophysical data
- Advise and coordinate with KoBold’s JV partners on geophysical data acquisition programs, ensuring appropriate application of and adherence to good practice in data collection
- Identify or develop innovative analytical methods and work with KoBold data scientists and software engineers to implement them in our software and to apply them to current and potential projects
- Devise data acquisition programs that improve upon current leading industry practice by leveraging KoBold’s technological capabilities and see them through to successful implementation in KoBold field programs
- Demonstrate in all activities a commitment to the highest standards in health and safety, environment, and community relations
Qualifications
A great Exploration Geophysicist candidate will have:
Technical expertise in, and significant experience with:
- Magnetic, gravity, pulsed EM (airborne, surface, and borehole), IP, and natural-source EM methods; familiarity with seismic methods is a plus but not required
- End-to-end use of geophysical methods: designing and overseeing surveys; cleaning, applying corrections to, QA’ing, and featurizing data; and analyzing geophysical data
- Computationally intensive analytical methods, such as joint inversions and conditional inversions
- Wireline logging and perspective on its application in mineral exploration
- Applying various geophysical methods to exploration for ore deposits in a commercial context, including evaluation of trade-offs and quantifying the value of each type of information
- Applying geophysical methods in the context of different ore deposits, with a deep understanding of the relevant ore-forming processes and the settings in which those types of deposits are found; experience with sediment-hosted stratiform copper deposits and/or magmatic sulfide deposits is a strong plus but not required
- Different stages of exploration projects, from greenfields regional generative efforts with coarse regional data to brownfield exploration and resource expansion problems with higher-density data including downhole geophysical measurements
Other key skills and problem-solving approach:
- Familiarity with industry standard geophysical software packages (e.g., Oasis Montaj, Maxwell) and proficiency in the kinds of analysis you can do with them…
- …but a keen awareness of their limitations and a fulsome set of ideas and capabilities to move the analysis to the way you think it should be done
- A focus on rigorously quantifying uncertainty in geophysical analysis
- An orientation toward thinking about problems from first principles, rather than relying on rules of thumb or standard workflows
- Knowledge of the state-of-the-art in geophysical data collection and analysis methods and a continued awareness of the best available technology and trends of new technology development, e.g., through reading literature, participation in conferences and training, and maintaining contacts with other practitioners
- A track record of innovation in geophysical exploration methods or analysis of geophysical data; research experience or other published work is a plus but not required
- Eagerness also to extract new insights out of historic, messy, and fragmentary data
- Strong working knowledge of at least one programming or scripting language (e.g., Python, R, C/C++) and experience with scientific computing
Non-technical skills:
- Demonstrated leadership skills including the ability to motivate and inspire others, to share ownership and responsibility for project outcomes, and to work effectively and enjoy working in collaborative, interdisciplinary teams
- A strong track record of coaching and training geoscientists of varying experience, educational backgrounds, and cultures in leading-practice mineral exploration
- Demonstrated commitment to high standards of health and safety in the workplace
- Insatiable intellectual curiosity
Training and work experience:
- A minimum of 10 years’ experience in the mineral exploration industry (or 5 years post-Ph.D.); title and compensation will be commensurate with experience
- An M.Sc. or higher degree in a geoscience field or in a related physical science (Ph.D. is a plus)
- Professional registration preferred
KoBold Metals is an equal opportunity workplace and an affirmative action employer. We are committed to equal employment opportunity for people of any race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, marital status, national origin, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, or veteran status.
This position is full-time, exempt.
Location: We are open to candidates anywhere in the world. KoBold Metals has offices in Vancouver, BC and Berkeley, CA, and a presence in Zambia.
Interested applicants should email jobs@koboldmetals.com with a resume and a cover letter that describes your perspective on geophysical data collection and analysis and addresses the items enumerated in the problem-solving approach section above. Candidates should state whether they currently have authorization to work in the US or Canada.