Note: The job is a remote job and is open to candidates in USA. The Center for Geospatial Solutions (CGS), a self-sustaining nonprofit enterprise at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, uses geospatial technologies, satellite data, and artificial intelligence to address complex land, water, conservation, and infrastructure challenges. The Data Scientist II will implement geospatial data science, remote sensing, and environmental modeling workflows, evaluate and validate data and models, document results, and help automate scalable analytical processes. The role collaborates with technical staff and project stakeholders to deliver reliable, reproducible insights and client deliverables.
Responsibilities
- Implement established geospatial data science and remote sensing workflows from data acquisition through processing, analysis, model execution, validation, and delivery
- Acquire, organize, clean, and evaluate raster, vector, tabular, terrain, and Earth observation datasets from public, partner, and client sources
- Use Python, GIS software, and open-source tools to process large geospatial datasets and generate repeatable analytical outputs
- Run geospatial machine learning or deep learning workflows, evaluate model outputs, and identify important performance issues or data limitations
- Exercise judgment about the best available data, important caveats, and technical issues that should be elevated to senior technical staff
- Conduct spatial statistics, accuracy assessments, quality-control checks, and validation using established methods
- Prepare clear documentation of data sources, processing steps, code, assumptions, limitations, and results
- Review outputs for completeness, consistency, and technical quality before they are shared with partners or clients
- Contribute to reproducible project structures, data dictionaries, metadata, and technical handoff materials
- Identify repetitive or error-prone steps that can be automated, standardized, or made more efficient
- Develop and maintain scripts, functions, notebooks, and reusable components that improve delivery speed and consistency
- Work with senior data scientists, AI engineers, and cloud engineers to move useful prototypes toward scalable workflows
- Test new datasets and methods and share practical findings with the broader technical team
- Work closely with senior technical staff, AI engineers, GIS professionals, project managers, and subject-matter experts
- Communicate progress, technical considerations, results, and risks clearly in team meetings, written updates, and presentations
- Contribute to client deliverables, proposals, technical memos, presentations, and demonstrations
- Participate in peer review and contribute to an inclusive team culture focused on learning, quality, and impact
Skills
- * Master's degree or equivalent experience in data science, geography, remote sensing, environmental science, engineering, computer science, or a related quantitative field
- * 2-5 years of professional experience applying geospatial analysis, data science, remote sensing, or environmental modeling to solve real world problems and address stakeholder needs
- * Proficiency in Python for data engineering and data science workflows, including experience with common geospatial and scientific libraries
- * Experience with raster and vector data, GIS software such as Esri or open-source equivalents, and large geospatial datasets
- * Strong foundation in statistics, data science, machine learning, and remote sensing
- * Experience acquiring, cleaning, evaluating, and documenting data from multiple sources
- * Experience independently designing and implementing GeoAI models and other analytical approaches, addressing open-ended problems with incomplete or evolving requirements
- * Experience with Git/GitHub or comparable version-control workflows
- * Strong attention to detail and commitment to reproducible, well-documented work
- * Clear written and verbal communication skills and the ability to collaborate effectively in a fully remote environment
- * Collaborative and able to work successfully in interdisciplinary teams with colleagues from various topical backgrounds and different skill levels and communication levels
- * Exceptional critical thinking skills with the ability to deconstruct complex problems, prioritize issues, and implement sensible solutions
- * Experience translating client needs into clear milestones, scopes of work, and risk assessments
- * Strong ability to communicate technical and computational concepts clearly to non-technical audiences, including domain experts, stakeholders, and partners
- * Self-motivated and goal-oriented with the ability to take an innovative, strategic, and evidence-based approaches to research and empathetic collaboration
- * Willingness and ability to learn new frameworks, data structures, and infrastructure
- * U.S. Citizen, or legally authorized to work in the United States with no need for future sponsorship
- * Experience with hydrology, geomorphology, terrain analysis, wetlands, ecology, or other environmental domains
- * Experience with cloud-based processing using AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, Google Earth Engine, or similar platforms
- * Experience with geospatial foundation models, embeddings, or large-scale Earth observation datasets
- * Experience contributing to academic or applied research, including study design, analysis, and communication of findings
- * Experience with field data, wetland delineations, survey data, or validation datasets
- * Experience supporting government, nonprofit, or consulting projects and working within defined scopes and deadlines
Benefits
- 3x employer contribution towards retirement matching your employee contribution up to 15%
- Health insurance with no deductible
- Dental insurance
- Vision insurance
- Copay assistance through an employer-funded health reimbursement account
- Short-term disability coverage
- Long-term disability coverage
- Paid parental leave
- Voluntary insurances such as accident insurance
- Health care flexible spending
- Dependent care flexible spending
- Paid time off for holidays, vacation, personal, sick, bereavement, and jury duty
- Office closure between December 24 and January 1 each calendar year
- Flexible schedule and option for a compressed 4-day workweek
- Tuition and staff development reimbursement
- Pet insurance
- Employee Assistance Program
Company Overview