Geospatial Data Scientist — Grid Resilience & Equity

Socket.dev; Houston (TX); On-site; USD 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

Neara is seeking a Data Scientist, Geospatial to join our Houston team, where you will build physics-backed, geospatial models using LiDAR, GIS data, and weather inputs to mitigate wildfire risks and optimize grid hardening. You will partner with a key regional electric utility, embedding with their GIS teams and delivering data-driven insights for capital investments.

Ideal candidates bring 5+ years in data science or ML, strong communication, and the ability to translate complex results for

Qualifications

• 5+ years of hands-on experience in data science or machine learning.
• Geospatial data or power grid domain experience is a plus.
• Strong quantitative intuition for data, with excellent communication skills and proven experience presenting complex findings to customers and senior leaders.
• Experience working in fast-paced, high-growth scale-up technology environments is a plus.
• Self-driven with a bias for action; able to take ownership of complex projects.
• Natural collaborator who thrives at the intersection of technical teams and external stakeholders.

Responsibilities

• Embed and collaborate directly with customer geospatial and GIS teams in a hybrid setting, spending time on-site at their offices to deeply understand their data workflows, integrate systems, and solve complex spatial challenges.
• Build predictive risk models on Neara that combine LiDAR, terrain models, and weather data to simulate conductor sag, sway, and vegetation fall-in risks to directly prevent wildfire ignitions.
• Translate complex spatial and structural risk metrics into defensible, data-driven insights that inform utility capital investment decisions for grid hardening.
• Build and maintain robust spatial data pipelines to ingest, clean, vectorize, and integrate diverse geospatial data formats from our utility partner.
• Establish QA/QC benchmarks for spatial accuracy, coordinate reference system (CRS) transformations, and structural alignment across disparate data sources.
• Mentor others in best practices for model training, data analytics, and building data-driven products.

Skills

Data science

Machine learning

Geospatial data

Communication

Stakeholder management

Collaboration

Job description

Neara is seeking a Data Scientist, Geospatial to join our Houston team, where you will build physics-backed, geospatial models using LiDAR, GIS data, and weather inputs to mitigate wildfire risks and optimize grid hardening. You will partner with a key regional electric utility, embedding with their GIS teams and delivering data-driven insights for capital investments.

Ideal candidates bring 5+ years in data science or ML, strong communication, and the ability to translate complex results for