Rainmaker Fellow, Radar Science

This is a paid, full-time research fellowship in Rainmaker's radar-science group. The fellow will work on a scoped project drawn from the team's research priorities, taking responsibility for a concrete workstream while contributing to ongoing analysis, scientific review, and operational support. The role involves building radar datasets, implementing validation methods, and delivering a final artifact such as a validated dataset or analysis framework.

Responsibilities

• Build quality-controlled radar datasets aligned with aircraft, UAS, satellite, model, surface, or operational observations.
• Implement and validate radar-processing, feature-extraction, retrieval, storm-tracking, or statistical-analysis methods.
• Investigate how results vary with storm type, range, terrain, temperature regime, observing geometry, and data quality.
• Develop honest baselines and quantify uncertainty, false detections, selection effects, and failure modes.
• Create case visualizations and scientific analyses that domain experts can inspect.
• Avoid overstating what radar observations can establish about seedability or intervention effects.
• Produce clear, reusable code and documentation.
• Present findings to Rainmaker's radar scientists, meteorologists, operators, and technical leadership.
• Deliver a final artifact such as a validated dataset, case atlas, tracking system, retrieval candidate, operational product, analysis protocol, or research paper.

Requirements

• Current undergraduate, master's, or PhD students; postdoctoral researchers; recent graduates; and other early-career researchers are all eligible.
• Strong quantitative and programming ability, preferably in Python.
• Experience with radar meteorology, atmospheric science, signal processing, remote sensing, image analysis, geospatial data, or a closely related field.
• Ability to formulate a scientific question, implement an analysis, and validate the result carefully.
• Comfort working with large, imperfect observational datasets.
• High agency and the ability to take responsibility for a bounded workstream while collaborating with experienced researchers.
• Clear written and verbal communication.
• Availability for full-time, on-site work in El Segundo for the agreed appointment.

Nice to have

• Weather radar, polarimetric radar, MRMS, NEXRAD, quantitative precipitation estimation, storm-object tracking, cloud radar, or radar retrievals.
• Scientific Python, xarray, geospatial processing, visualization, statistical modeling, or ML for physical data.
• Cloud microphysics, mixed-phase clouds, hail, severe convection, or weather modification.
• Aircraft, UAS, field-campaign, or instrument-validation data.

Benefits

• Full health coverage (medical, dental, and vision insurance)
• Lunch provided when working in-office and a fully stocked kitchenette
• Free EV charging at the HQ