Rainmaker busca un Lead Instrumentation Engineer para liderar el desarrollo técnico de su cartera de instrumentos de medición atmosférica. La primera misión es entregar un instrumento de imagen de partículas de nubes para integrarlo en un UAS, que debe volar y producir mediciones validadas en nueve meses. El rol combina liderazgo técnico con trabajo práctico de ingeniería, coordinando equipos internos, externos y proveedores, y definiendo la hoja de ruta de instrumentación a largo plazo.

Responsibilities

Own instrument delivery from scientific requirement through architecture, detailed design, fabrication, integration, calibration, flight testing, validation, and production transition.
Establish the instrument's system requirements, interfaces, performance budget, verification plan, schedule, and technical risks.
Make and document critical tradeoffs across optical performance, sampling volume, spatial resolution, size, weight, power, thermal behavior, vibration, environmental exposure, compute, data rate, and manufacturability.
Coordinate electrical, embedded, data-acquisition, reconstruction-software, UAS-integration, atmospheric-science, manufacturing, and field-validation work.
Identify missing capabilities and determine whether they should be supplied by dedicated hires, existing Rainmaker engineers, contractors, advisors, vendors, or research partners.
Design calibration and validation campaigns, including comparison against commercial cloud-particle and icing instruments.
Lead flight integration and resolve issues discovered in laboratory, ground, and in-cloud testing.
Define production acceptance tests, calibration procedures, maintenance requirements, field documentation, and configuration control.
Develop Rainmaker's longer-term atmospheric-instrumentation roadmap based on which measurements would most improve forecasting, targeting, intervention analysis, and scientific understanding.

Requirements

A degree in electrical engineering, optical engineering, aerospace engineering, physics, or a related field, or equivalent evidence of exceptional instrument-development ability.
A record of delivering complex sensing or scientific hardware from ambiguous requirements to validated operation.
Deep hands-on strength in at least one relevant discipline, paired with enough systems judgment to integrate optics, mechanics, electronics, embedded control, software, and data products.
Experience setting requirements, interfaces, error or performance budgets, verification methods, and test plans for multidisciplinary hardware.
Strong mechanical and electrical intuition and willingness to build, assemble, debug, and test hardware personally.
Experience making hardware work outside the laboratory under real thermal, vibration, contamination, alignment, power, and communications constraints.
Ability to distinguish a scientifically interesting prototype from a calibrated and supportable operational instrument.
Strong written and verbal communication across scientists, engineers, operators, manufacturers, and external partners.
High agency and comfort establishing direction without a mature instrumentation organization or predetermined roadmap.

Nice to have

Experience developing airborne, UAS-borne, atmospheric, remote-sensing, particle-imaging, optical, lidar, radar, or other scientific instruments.
Experience with digital holography, high-speed imaging, lasers, cloud-particle probes, aerosol instruments, or optical particle characterization.
Familiarity with atmospheric measurements, cloud microphysics, calibration, measurement uncertainty, or field campaigns.
Experience designing within aerospace size, weight, power, vibration, thermal, and environmental constraints.
Experience transitioning low-volume scientific hardware into repeatable production and field support.
Familiarity with scientific Python, data acquisition, embedded systems, signal processing, or reconstruction pipelines.
Experience selecting and managing specialized vendors or contract manufacturers.

Benefits

Significant stock options with high potential upside as an early-stage company
401(k) with employer matching
Full health coverage (medical, dental, and vision insurance)
Relocation assistance provided (if applicable)
Unlimited PTO
Paid parental leave for both parents
Lunch provided when working in-office and a fully stocked kitchenette
Free EV charging at the HQ