WindBorne Systems is supercharging weather models with a unique proprietary data source: a global constellation of next-generation smart weather balloons targeting the most critical atmospheric data. We design, manufacture, and operate our own balloons, using the data they collect to generate otherwise unattainable weather intelligence.
Our mission is to eliminate weather uncertainty, and in the process help humanity adapt to climate change, be that predicting hurricanes or speeding the adoption of renewables. We are building a future in which the planet is instrumented by thousands of our microballoons, eliminating gaps in our understanding of the planet and giving people and businesses the information they need to make critical decisions. The founding team of Stanford engineers was named Forbes 2019 30 under 30 and is backed by top investors including Khosla Ventures.
Do you delight in pushing systems to their absolute limits? In contorting boundaries to accomplish deranged behavior no one else would have considered possible? Are you a fan of
Turing-complete powerpoint
Flappy bird in Figma
Doom on potatoes
Minecraft with CSS
Then you might be the right fit for WindBorne System’s Forward Deployed Special Operations Flight Control Engineer.
WindBorne Systems designs, manufactures, and operates the world’s largest (and only) continuously operational constellation of autonomous long-duration, high-altitude weather balloons.
We achieve full coverage of the atmosphere by launching a lot of balloons, spread out in time and space. However, sometimes, we need to navigate our balloons to a specific location (eg: into the eye of a hurricane).
“Wait a minute, balloons are a non-propulsion system. How do you navigate them?” Balloons navigate by controlling their buoyancy—either dropping ballast or venting gas to go up and down respectively. If you know what the wind speed and direction is at different altitudes you can go anywhere in the world.
The streamlined propulsion design demands expertise in understanding simulations, atmospheric conditions and extensive telemetry monitoring. To navigate balloons successfully, you must create a mental model of the wind field and combine that with knowledge of the balloon’s physical properties and current state. All this to say, this isn’t like you’re driving a car. You aren’t operating a well-oiled machine where inputs have clear, deterministic, predictable outputs. You are pushing a non-propulsion system to its physical limits.
If this was easy, we would have automated it. We need a human being to operate at the boundary of automation where human skill and intuition is genuinely smarter than what we can code.
You are not expected to know anything about balloons for this role. Like, why would you? However, you should be confident that you are able to build intuition at the intricate intersection of balloon physics, flight control logic, and human systems. This intuition will be critical for you to fluidly navigate the idiosyncrasies of our balloon operations.
Responsibilities
Using process & physical intuition to pilot a non-propulsion system
Stay up to date with our rapidly evolving flight control system
Be on-call to take requests from customers
Skills and Qualifications
Requirements
Willing to get security clearance
American Citizen
Our ideal candidate will have the following personality traits
Like Zulip (asynchronous communication)
Weird sleep schedule
Cool under pressure
Able to handle a lot of balls in the air without getting overwhelmed or dropping any of them
Thrives on constructive feedback (?)
Exercise
If you want a guaranteed close look at your resume and a promise that you will hear back from me, you can complete the following challenge at the link below:
https://gist.github.com/dkafayi/ff8e46689b68c64e0c706cc0944d8c9b
