Lead Geospatial AI Scientist — Satellite & Vessel Analytics

SynMax; Washington (District of Columbia); On-site; USD 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

SynMax, Inc. is seeking a Senior Geospatial Data Scientist to join Theia's data science team in Washington, DC. You will fuse satellite imagery with vessel-tracking data to build detection and prediction models, taking work from prototype to production on cloud infrastructure and explaining your reasoning clearly to stakeholders.

The role emphasizes strong Python skills, geospatial analysis, and experience with EO/SAR data, with collaboration across engineering and analytics teams.

Qualifications

• Strong geospatial analysis background with experience in spatial data, coordinates, and geospatial techniques.
• Experience with earth observation data (EO/SAR) and related workflows.
• Proficient in Python and practical experience across the machine learning lifecycle (modeling, evaluation, iteration).
• Ability to explain reasoning and approach clearly to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.

Responsibilities

• Develop and improve geospatial models and pipelines that fuse AIS-like data with satellite imagery to detect vessel behavior and anomalies.
• Apply computer vision techniques to satellite imagery for vessel detection and attribution.
• Work with large-scale geospatial datasets and time-series data to build validation and prediction models.
• Take models from prototype to production, coordinating with eng to deploy on GCP or equivalent cloud platforms.
• Investigate new data sources and methods to close gaps in maritime domain awareness.
• Communicate findings and model behavior clearly to stakeholders, including customers.

Skills

Geospatial data science

Python

Earth observation data

Computer vision

ML lifecycle

Tools

GeoPandas

GDAL

PyTorch

QGIS

Job description

SynMax, Inc. is seeking a Senior Geospatial Data Scientist to join Theia's data science team in Washington, DC. You will fuse satellite imagery with vessel-tracking data to build detection and prediction models, taking work from prototype to production on cloud infrastructure and explaining your reasoning clearly to stakeholders.

The role emphasizes strong Python skills, geospatial analysis, and experience with EO/SAR data, with collaboration across engineering and analytics teams.