About the role#
The Rainmaker Atmospheric Instrumentation Fellowship is a paid, full-time research and engineering appointment. You will join the instrumentation team to work on a scoped project defined in collaboration with a mentor. This role involves taking responsibility for a concrete experimental or engineering workstream while contributing to the design and testing efforts of the broader team. You will produce a rigorous, reusable result that advances a specific part of the company's instrument development priorities.
What you'll do#
- Translate scientific measurement needs into scoped experimental or engineering plans.
- Build, integrate, calibrate, and test hardware and analysis methods.
- Create repeatable calibration procedures for defined instrument metrics.
- Characterize measurement uncertainty and sensitivity to environmental, mechanical, optical, electrical, or algorithmic factors.
- Build fixtures, test equipment, data-acquisition workflows, and analysis software for validation.
- Help design laboratory, ground, and flight comparisons against reference instrumentation.
- Connect physical instrument behavior to measurement and retrieval quality.
- Produce documentation, calibration records, acceptance criteria, and reusable analysis code.
- Deliver a final artifact such as a validated dataset, calibration system, instrument prototype, test method, uncertainty analysis, or technical report.
What you'll need#
- Current enrollment in an undergraduate, master's, or PhD program, or status as a postdoctoral researcher or recent graduate.
- Academic background in optical, mechanical, electrical, or environmental engineering, physics, atmospheric science, computer science, or related experimental fields.
- Strong hands-on experimental ability and a willingness to personally build and troubleshoot hardware.
- Quantitative programming and data-analysis skills.
- Careful scientific judgment regarding calibration, uncertainty, repeatability, and validation.
- Ability to take responsibility for a bounded workstream while collaborating with engineers and scientists.
Location & details#
- Location: El Segundo, California.
- Commitment: Full-time, on-site.
- Duration: Three to six months, with four months as the standard duration.
- Application process: Rolling applications with project-specific start dates.
- Compensation: $8,000 per month.
- Benefits: Full health coverage (medical, dental, and vision), lunch provided when in-office, and free EV charging at headquarters.
