Senior Geospatial Software Engineer

Climate X; London; Hybrid; GBP 60,000 - 80,000; Full time

Job summary

A purpose-driven technology company is seeking a Senior GIS Software Engineer to work on innovative projects that address global climate risks. Ideal candidates will have strong Python skills and experience with geospatial data. The role involves building and optimizing data processing systems and collaborating with diverse teams. Benefits include a hybrid working model and extensive training opportunities.

Benefits

Monthly training budget

Pension contribution scheme

Mental Health support

25 days holiday plus bank holidays

Dog friendly office

Qualifications

• Strong experience in building scalable, performant data processing systems.
• Hands-on experience with raster data and relevant tooling.
• Ability to collaborate with multidisciplinary teams.

Responsibilities

• Design, build, and optimise backend systems for large-scale geospatial data processing.
• Identify bottlenecks in raster data workflows and propose innovative solutions.
• Collaborate with ML engineers and scientists to scale scientific models.

Skills

Backend engineering skills in Python

Experience with geospatial data formats

Problem-solving mindset

Tools

GDAL

PostgreSQL

Docker

Job description

Senior GIS Software Engineer

About us

Climate X is a purpose-driven technology company, backed by GV (Google Ventures), Western Technologies (early investors in Meta, Google, Palantir), Commerz Ventures, Pale Blue Dot, Deloitte, and other world-class investors. We’re a wonderfully diverse, growing team with physical offices in London and New York City.

Demand for Climate X is growing fast, and we need to build our team! You’ll be at the front of a nascent industry, working as part of a fantastic and diverse team, doing things that you can be proud of. We’re excited to have the opportunity to speak with you during this process.

Our mission

To deepen the understanding of our changing planet and inspire meaningful action.

What we do

• We’re helping the world become more resilient to the impacts of physical climate risks (including floods, fires, storms and more). In doing so, we help drive positive global impact aligned to many of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDG’s).
• Our team builds cutting-edge, peer-reviewed science (incorporating climate projections, remote sensing data) and translates that into financial impacts (to the value of assets or business disruption linked to failure of critical infrastructure) that our customers in the financial services industry use to identify, manage and mitigate those risks.
• Climate X’s customers include the world’s largest banks, asset managers and insurance companies including CBRE, Standard Chartered, Virgin Money and Federated Hermes, as well as a partnership ecosystem that includes Deloitte, Capgemini and AWS. Combined, they manage over $6.5 trillion of assets.
• Customers choose us thanks to our ecosystem of products that help solve real human problems and drive tangible business benefits. They love our customer-centric mindset, as well as our pace of innovation in the market.

THE IMPACT YOU’LL OWN

As a Senior Geospatial Software Engineer, you will join our Geo Pod and work at the intersection of software engineering, geospatial data, and machine learning. This is a unique opportunity to contribute to cutting‑edge projects tackling global climate risk challenges.

You will work on:

AWS POC Project (IRCAI): Collaborate with our Machine Learning and Science teams on the AWS–IRCAI Climate Fellowship initiative (Learn more here), building innovative tools for climate risk modelling.

Raster Scaling Challenge: Lead the development of a next‑generation solution to manage and process rapidly growing, high‑resolution raster datasets at scale.

Scientific Software Engineering: Partner with our climate scientists to improve the scalability, performance, and reliability of scientific models through expert‑level Python coding.

Responsibilities:

• Design, build, and optimise backend systems for large‑scale geospatial and climate data processing.
• Identify performance bottlenecks in raster data workflows and propose innovative, future‑proof solutions.
• Collaborate with ML engineers and scientists to integrate and scale scientific models in production.
• Build and maintain robust data pipelines in a cloud environment (AWS).
• Contribute to proof‑of‑concept and production projects with a focus on quality, scalability, and maintainability.

ESSENTIAL SKILLS

• Strong backend engineering skills in Python, with experience building scalable, performant data processing systems and RESTful APIs; ideally following a TDD approach.
• Hands‑on experience with geospatial data formats, with an emphasis on raster data, and relevant tooling (e.g., GDAL, QGIS, Rasterio, xarray, STAC).
• Ability to collaborate effectively with multidisciplinary teams (ML, Science, Engineering).
• Problem‑solving mindset with a passion for tackling large‑scale data and performance challenges.

DESIRABLE SKILLS

• Understanding of scientific computing and data‑driven modelling workflows.
• Experience architecting cloud native solutions, particularly AWS.
• Proficiency with geospatial-optimised SQL databases (RDBMS for tabular data), such as PostgreSQL. Wider understanding of Geographic Information Systems (GIS).
• Knowledge of containerisation (Docker) and CI/CD pipelines.
• Experience contributing to open‑source geospatial or scientific computing projects.

BENEFITS

Contribute to a business making purposeful impact related to climate change

Monthly training & conference budget to help you upskill and develop your career (£1,000 per year)

6 monthly appraisals and 12 monthly pay reviews

Pension contribution scheme

Hybrid working (3 days/week in office)

Mental Health and Wellbeing support via Oliva

25 days holiday, plus Bank Holidays, annual 3-day Christmas-closure, and half day on your birthday (36.5 days total!)

Optional quarterly socials, dinners, and fun nights out

A fully stocked supply of snacks, fruit, and refreshments for the days when you are in the office

Cycle to work scheme via gogeta

Enhanced maternity and paternity

Pawternity

Dog friendly office (official residence of Alfie, Chief Mischief Officer)

EQUAL OPPORTUNITIES

Climate X are an equal opportunity employer and value diversity at our company. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, colour, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status. We are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees and welcome applications from individuals of all backgrounds.