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Principal Soil Scientist (Remote)
YardstickUnited StatesRemotefull_timeVerifiedPosted 3 Jan 2024
About the role
About The Role
Yard Stick is looking for a Principal Soil Scientist to help us fight climate change with soil.
The Principal Soil Scientist will spearhead our science team. This looks like designing and implementing Yard Stick’s research goals and roadmap, defining the scientific partnership strategy, and making sure high quality soil science principles are integrated across all Yard Stick functions.
Yard Stick’s mission is clear: We must replace lab analysis of soil carbon with in situ spectroscopy if carbon removal via soils is to have meaningful climate impact. Beyond markets, of course, improved quality of measurement will also increase our ability to understand the nature of changing soil carbon stocks around the world. The ideal candidate is a soil scientist who is passionate about high-quality proximal sensing research and mapping, particularly in regards to soil carbon. This candidate will have demonstrated successful leadership and motivation of a small team and values radical candor and company culture.
This role will lead a team of our current Senior Soil Scientist, Sarah Coffman, and report to our cofounder and Chief Technology Officer, Kevin Meissner. This scientist can be based anywhere in US time zones, with the ability to travel ~10-20% (combination of field work, science meetings, as well as company and scientific partner on-sites).
This is a dream job for a pedometrician or soil scientist with proximal sensing experience who enjoys applying their knowledge to real world problems through high-quality and rigorous lab and field research. Someone who wants to nurture engaged and multidisciplinary research teams without the red tape of government and academic institutions will enjoy this work at Yard Stick.
We would like to hire this role ASAP.
About Yard Stick PBC
Yard Stick is a remote-first climate tech startup with cofounders based in Boston, MA and Oakland, CA. We are on a mission to reverse climate change with agriculture. Scientists and farmers alike know that climate-friendly agricultural practices have the potential to remove atmospheric CO2 at gigaton/year scale. When these practices are adopted, more carbon is stored in soils, improving soil health and fighting climate change. But significant measurement challenges have held soil carbon efforts back - until now.
By reducing the cost of soil carbon measurement by 70-90%, Yard Stick will dramatically expand the opportunities for evidence-based regenerative practices to simultaneously improve ecosystem health, increase farmer income, and combat climate change.
Current soil carbon measurement technologies are slow, expensive, and cumbersome, relying on conventional soil cores and labs to quantify carbon stocks. In contrast, Yard Stick is fast and cheap - without sacrificing accuracy. As a testament to our technology’s potential, alongside our scientific collaborators, we were awarded $18M across six USDA Climate-Smart Commodities projects, and we have additional grant financing from ARPA-E, NSF, CDFA, and other discerning grant-makers. We’ve also raised another nearly $18M from top climate VCs, including Toyota Climate Venture Fund, Lowercarbon Capital, Breakthrough Energy Ventures (Bill Gates’ climate fund), Microsoft Climate Innovation Fund, The Nature Conservancy, Extania, Pillar VC, MCJ Collective… the list goes on!
For more background, check out some coverage of Yard Stick in TechCrunch, Fast Company, and AgFunder.
We offer competitive salary and equity (benchmarked to 75th percentile of high-growth US tech compensation), health/dental/vision insurance, a 401k, and home-office reimbursements. We have many team members with young families and have a strong track record of creative, flexible approaches to hours and communication expectations which let folks feel great about their commitments both to Yard Stick and their lives outside of work.
We’re also a PBC, or public benefit corporation, which is an alternative corporate structure which pro
Yard Stick is looking for a Principal Soil Scientist to help us fight climate change with soil.
The Principal Soil Scientist will spearhead our science team. This looks like designing and implementing Yard Stick’s research goals and roadmap, defining the scientific partnership strategy, and making sure high quality soil science principles are integrated across all Yard Stick functions.
Yard Stick’s mission is clear: We must replace lab analysis of soil carbon with in situ spectroscopy if carbon removal via soils is to have meaningful climate impact. Beyond markets, of course, improved quality of measurement will also increase our ability to understand the nature of changing soil carbon stocks around the world. The ideal candidate is a soil scientist who is passionate about high-quality proximal sensing research and mapping, particularly in regards to soil carbon. This candidate will have demonstrated successful leadership and motivation of a small team and values radical candor and company culture.
This role will lead a team of our current Senior Soil Scientist, Sarah Coffman, and report to our cofounder and Chief Technology Officer, Kevin Meissner. This scientist can be based anywhere in US time zones, with the ability to travel ~10-20% (combination of field work, science meetings, as well as company and scientific partner on-sites).
This is a dream job for a pedometrician or soil scientist with proximal sensing experience who enjoys applying their knowledge to real world problems through high-quality and rigorous lab and field research. Someone who wants to nurture engaged and multidisciplinary research teams without the red tape of government and academic institutions will enjoy this work at Yard Stick.
We would like to hire this role ASAP.
About Yard Stick PBC
Yard Stick is a remote-first climate tech startup with cofounders based in Boston, MA and Oakland, CA. We are on a mission to reverse climate change with agriculture. Scientists and farmers alike know that climate-friendly agricultural practices have the potential to remove atmospheric CO2 at gigaton/year scale. When these practices are adopted, more carbon is stored in soils, improving soil health and fighting climate change. But significant measurement challenges have held soil carbon efforts back - until now.
By reducing the cost of soil carbon measurement by 70-90%, Yard Stick will dramatically expand the opportunities for evidence-based regenerative practices to simultaneously improve ecosystem health, increase farmer income, and combat climate change.
Current soil carbon measurement technologies are slow, expensive, and cumbersome, relying on conventional soil cores and labs to quantify carbon stocks. In contrast, Yard Stick is fast and cheap - without sacrificing accuracy. As a testament to our technology’s potential, alongside our scientific collaborators, we were awarded $18M across six USDA Climate-Smart Commodities projects, and we have additional grant financing from ARPA-E, NSF, CDFA, and other discerning grant-makers. We’ve also raised another nearly $18M from top climate VCs, including Toyota Climate Venture Fund, Lowercarbon Capital, Breakthrough Energy Ventures (Bill Gates’ climate fund), Microsoft Climate Innovation Fund, The Nature Conservancy, Extania, Pillar VC, MCJ Collective… the list goes on!
For more background, check out some coverage of Yard Stick in TechCrunch, Fast Company, and AgFunder.
We offer competitive salary and equity (benchmarked to 75th percentile of high-growth US tech compensation), health/dental/vision insurance, a 401k, and home-office reimbursements. We have many team members with young families and have a strong track record of creative, flexible approaches to hours and communication expectations which let folks feel great about their commitments both to Yard Stick and their lives outside of work.
We’re also a PBC, or public benefit corporation, which is an alternative corporate structure which pro
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