Note: The job is a remote job and is open to candidates in USA. Phaidra builds AI-powered control systems for industrial facilities that learn from sensor data and improve operations over time. The Senior Data Scientist will own data science across customer deployments, diagnose mechanical and electrical system issues, validate AI-driven tools, encode domain expertise into operational logic, and support customer-facing teams.
Responsibilities
- **Own a portfolio:** Serve as the Data Science owner across a large set of concurrent customer deployments. Proactively hunt for problems in your portfolio without waiting to be pulled in, and know which of your systems are drifting before anyone tells you
- **Break our product on purpose:** Use Phaidra's platform daily to troubleshoot real customer systems. When the tool cannot answer your question, characterize the gap precisely and drive the fix into the product
- **Diagnose across disciplines:** Analyze mechanical and electrical telemetry as well as CMMS and alarm data to find failure signatures, performance degradation, and control pathologies, and trace symptoms to true root cause
- **Encode your expertise:** Convert telemetry and operational judgment into the SME-level logic our AI tooling uses to direct operators in real time
- **Validate the models:** Run pilots that stress our AI-driven tools against real conditions, and hold the line on whether the output is operationally realistic
- **Support the front line:** Partner with Solutions Engineering and TPMs, who own the customer relationship, and step into direct customer conversations when they need your depth. Give data-backed direction that actually gets implemented
- **Raise the team:** Mentor your peers across all teams. Actively collaborate with others and share learnings in a way that makes everyone better within the company
- **Lean in:** You will hit challenges and scopes not written here. Solve them
Skills
- 8-12 years of experience in facilities, plant, industrial, or manufacturing operations, engineering, or controls, with a track record of using data analysis to materially improve how those systems perform
- Deep cooling systems expertise: Chiller plant fundamentals, configurations, and sequences of operation. Applied thermodynamics, hydronics, refrigeration cycles, and airside behavior
- Strong Python with Pandas and NumPy, and the ability to do custom analysis on industrial time-series data when standard tooling falls short
- Proven as a senior individual contributor across many concurrent sites or projects, with sound judgment about where to spend your attention
- A deep interest in how and why systems fail. You would rather solve a live problem than write a paper about it
- You walk into a problem without preconceived notions and work it out, independently or with the team
- You can explain a complex diagnostic finding to a plant operator, a VP, and a software engineer, and have all three walk away with what they need
- You treat peers as fellow experts and measure success by the team's outcomes, not just your own portfolio
- You will use LLMs daily here. No AI/ML background required, but we expect you to use these tools strategically and help others do the same
- Equivalent depth earned through operational experience is welcome
- Agency, Velocity, Craft, Truth
- Time-series data from industrial sensors: SCADA, BMS, EMS, historians, smart meters
- Working knowledge of industrial and commercial control protocols such as BACnet and Modbus
- Data Centers, district energy, thermal storage, industrial refrigeration, or other large-scale thermal systems
- A customer-facing or multi-site role where you owned outcomes you did not fully control
- Optimization problems in a thermal or controls context
- Mentoring analysts or engineers newer to data work than you
- Phaidra is seeking teammates who are based in the United States or Canada
- Phaidra only hires individuals who are legally authorized to work in the specified location(s) above. We do not provide employment sponsorship. Candidates requiring visa sponsorship, either now or in the future, are not eligible for hire
- Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Control Theory, Chemical Engineering, or a related field grounded in physical systems and thermodynamics is preferred
Benefits
- This position is eligible for equity.
- We are a 100% remote company.
- Competitive compensation & meaningful equity.
- Outsized responsibilities & professional development.
- Training is foundational; functional, customer immersion, and development training.
- Medical, dental, and vision insurance (exact benefits vary by region).
- Unlimited paid time off, with a required minimum of 20 days per year.
- Paid parental leave (exact benefits vary by region).
- Flexible stipends to support your workspace, well-being, and continued professional development.
- Company MacBook.
- Documentation-first and asynchronous communication to support focus and flexibility across time zones.
- Weekly all-hands meetings.
- Virtual team-building activities and social events.
Company Overview