Operations Specialist: Flight Control

WindBorne Systems•Palo Alto, CA

21h•$80,000 - $110,000•Onsite

About The Position

WindBorne Systems is supercharging weather forecasts 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-tier investors, including Khosla Ventures and Footwork VC. WindBorne achieves full atmospheric coverage by launching balloons spread across time and space, but sometimes we need to navigate them to specific locations—like into the eye of a hurricane. That’s where our Flight Control team's role comes in. Balloons navigate by changing their altitude: drop ballast to ascend, or vent gas to descend. Different altitudes have different wind speeds and directions, so if you understand the wind field, you can route a balloon anywhere in the world. In practice, flight control means relying on a mix of meteorology, physics, and operational judgment to get balloons wherever they need to go. You'll become an expert at flying our balloons. We're not looking for someone to follow a script; we want you to get better at this than we currently are. Balloons fail often – sometimes from hardware issues, sometimes from weather, sometimes from our own mistakes. We launch a lot of them, and we're constantly learning. In this role, you'll develop specialized knowledge that lets you make good calls quickly – when to avoid vs head through rough weather, how to correct for forecast uncertainties, and how to reach locations that push the bounds of what our hardware is capable of.

Requirements

Ability to learn independently in an environment where best practice is constantly evolving
Comfort prioritizing and making judgment calls in high-pressure, uncertain environments
Excellent communication skills (oral and written)
Ability to collaborate effectively with engineering teams
Willingness to work unusual hours to get the balloons where they need to go
Due to the nature of our work supporting U.S. defense operations, this position requires U.S. citizenship.