Job Application for Software Engineer (All Levels) at KoBold Metals Back to jobs Software Engineer (All Levels) Remote Apply We are open to hiring at multiple levels for this role, depending on experience, impact, and demonstrated ownership. While this role is level-agnostic, it is best suited for engineers with experience owning production systems and working in highly ambiguous problem spaces. Software Engineer
About the company: The mining industry has steadily become worse at finding new ore deposits, requiring >10X more capital to make discoveries compared to 30 years ago. The easy-to-find, near-surface deposits have largely been found, and the industry has chronically under-invested in new exploration technology, relying on the manual techniques of yesteryear – even as demand accelerates for copper, lithium, and other metals to build electric vehicles, renewable energy, and data centers. KoBold builds AI models for mineral exploration and deploys those models—alongside our novel sensors—to guide decisions on KoBold-owned-and-operated exploration programs. In the six years since founding, KoBold has become by far both the largest independent mineral exploration company and the largest exploration technology developer. Our data scientists and software engineers, who come from leading technology companies, jointly lead exploration programs with our renowned exploration geologists. KoBold has proven its first discovery with materially less capital than the industry average and found one of the best copper deposits ever discovered: the copper is far more concentrated than the global average of copper mines, and this asset alone is expected to generate meaningful revenue for decades. KoBold has a portfolio of more than 60 other projects, each of which has the potential for another high-quality discovery. KoBold is privately held; investors include institutional asset managers T. Rowe Price and Canada Pension Plan Investments; technology venture capitalists Andreessen Horowitz, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, BOND Capital, and Standard Investments; and natural resources companies Equinor, BHP, and Mitsubishi. We are hiring Software Engineers to accelerate our mission.
About
The Role: At KoBold, software engineers have the unique opportunity to embed directly with their users and learn the ins and outs of mineral exploration and geology while developing state of the art technology solutions. Unlike traditional software engineering roles, we don’t simply ship code and passively wait for feedback about its utility: our userbase includes our colleagues… and ourselves! While there are real technical challenges in making mineral exploration data broadly searchable and accessible to both humans and machines, we believe that solving these technical challenges cannot be done without “getting our hands dirty” – sometimes literally! – by embedding directly with the exploration teams and even occasionally (~once a year) joining our colleagues in the field, be it in Zambia, Canada, or Arizona, to experience the impact of our software in real time. As a Software Engineer on the Data Systems Engineering team at KoBold, your main role will be to enable systematic exploration and materially improve exploration success rates by making mineral exploration data broadly accessible to humans and machines. Past projects have included SIP (the Structured Ingest Pipeline), DataKit generation (producing curated sets of data on demand), and RAG (Retrieval Augmentation Generation, utilizing natural language processing on unstructured data). Our tech stack is primarily python and includes Django, React, AWS, and additional technologies like Retool and Prefect. Your work will empower KoBold to unlock invaluable insights and streamline intricate scientific processes. Collaborating with our exceptional team of data scientists, geologists, and other software engineers, you will have the opportunity to tackle complex problems head-on and collectively pave the way for the discoveries of vital energy transition metals like lithium, copper, nickel, and cobalt. Together we can shape the future of mineral exploration and contribute to building a sustainable world. This role be responsible for: Deep engagement with exploration geologists and data scientists, continual learning about mineral exploration, and tailoring technology development to the needs of exploration project scientists Building data pipelines and tooling for deriving advanced human and machine insights from exploration data, often leading a small group of software engineers to successful delivery Developing expertise in KoBold’s Data Systems and deeply understanding how they impact exploration End-to-end ownership of projects from design to implementation and testing to continued engagement with colleagues on exploration teams using your solutions Responding well to design and code feedback, also providing feedback to teammates Operationally managing
the team’s services and assisting scientific colleagues with our tooling
Qualifications 4+ years of software engineering experience, ideally building production cloud data systems Proficiency with Python Ability to write production-quality code that is correct, readable, well-tested, scalable and extensible Skilled in large-scale system design A track record of taking ownership from definition of the problem and delivering projects with demonstrated impact in an iterative manner Intellectual curiosity and eagerness to learn about all aspects of mineral exploration, particularly in the geology domain. Enjoys constantly learning such that you are driving insights through using our tools in exploration and willing to work directly with geologists in the field. Ability to explain technical problems to and collaborate on solutions with domain experts who are not software developers. A strong communicator who enjoys working with colleagues across the company. Excitement about joining a fast-growing early-stage company, comfort with a dynamic work environment, and eagerness to take on an evolving range of
responsibilities. Keen not just to build cool technology, but to figure out what technical product to build to best achieve the business objectives of the company. Nice to Haves Experience with modern frontend frameworks such as React Experience with geospatial data and building map-based experiences Familiarity with containerization and container orchestration platforms, such as Docker, AWS ECS, Kubernetes, etc. Formal education or job exposure to natural sciences The US base salary range for this full-time exempt position is $150,000 - $240,000. Location: KoBold is a remote-first workplace. All candidates must be legally authorized to work in one of the following countries: United States, Canada, Australia, South Africa, United Kingdom, Zambia, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Namibia, Finland, Sweden, or Botswana. Create a Job Alert Interested in building your career at KoBold Metals? Get future opportunities sent straight to your email. Create alert Apply for this job * indicates a required field Autofill with MyGreenhouse First Name * Last Name * Email * Phone Country * Phone * Resume/CV * Attach Attach Dropbox Google Drive Enter manually Enter manually Accepted file types: pdf, doc, docx, txt, rtf Cover Letter Attach Attach Dropbox Google Drive Enter manually Enter manually Accepted file types: pdf, doc, docx, txt, rtf Education School Select... Degree Select... Discipline Select... Start date month Select... Start date year End date month Select... End date year Add another LinkedIn Profile * Website I'm open to connecting with the KoBold team on LinkedIn * Select... What drew you to KoBold? (Applications without a response will not be considered) * I understand that interviews at KoBold include live technical sessions and may involve on-site interviews and field visit components. Please confirm: * Select... Voluntary Self-Identification For government reporting purposes, we ask candidates to respond to the below self-identification survey. Completion of the form is entirely voluntary. Whatever your decision, it will not be considered in the hiring process or thereafter. Any information that you do provide will be recorded and maintained in a confidential file. As set forth in KoBold Metals’s Equal Employment Opportunity policy, we do not discriminate on the basis of any protected group status under any applicable law. Gender Select... Are you Hispanic/Latino? Select... Race & Ethnicity Definitions If you believe you belong to any of the categories of protected veterans listed below, please indicate by making the appropriate selection. As a government contractor subject to the Vietnam Era Veterans Readjustment Assistance Act (VEVRAA), we request this information in order to measure the effectiveness of the outreach and positive recruitment efforts we undertake pursuant to VEVRAA. Classification of protected categories is as follows: A "disabled veteran" is one of the following: a veteran of the U.S. military, ground, naval or air service who is entitled to
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