Risk & Resilience Engineer

First Street Foundation; New York (NY); Hybrid; USD 90,000 - 125,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health insurance

Flexible working schedule

401(k) with company match

Paid parental leave

Vacation and sick days

Job summary

First Street Foundation in New York, NY, is seeking a Risk & Resilience Modeler to connect climate risk with financial outcomes. The candidate will develop models to predict structural damage from natural hazards, using a mix of engineering principles and machine learning.

The ideal applicant has a Ph.D. or a Master's with relevant experience, expertise in Python, and a solid background in risk modeling. We offer a competitive salary range of $90,000-$125,000 and a comprehensive benefits package.

Qualifications

• Ph.D. (preferred) or Master’s degree with 3 years experience in structural engineering, civil engineering, operation research, or related field.
• Expertise using scripted languages like Python.
• Hands-on experience in developing risk models for buildings or infrastructure systems.

Responsibilities

• Develop custom loss models representing climate and financial risk.
• Analyze historical loss data to improve model accuracy.
• Conduct statistical analysis to validate loss model predictions.

Skills

Risk modeling

Statistical analysis

Machine learning

Python

Building codes analysis

Education

Ph.D. in structural engineering or related field

Master’s degree with 3 years experience

Tools

Statistical software

Git

Job description

Company & Mission Overview

Our mission: We exist to connect climate and financial risk.

Who we are: First Street is the standard for Climate Risk Financial Modeling. For over a decade, we’ve been translating climate risk into decision-useful financial outcomes for investors, businesses, communities, and property owners worldwide. With backing from world‑class firms, including Innovation Endeavors, Galvanize, General Catalyst, and others, our team has raised millions to change how the global economy thinks about climate change.

Read more about our culture here and see what Climate Risk Financial Modeling is all about here.

Our data: We’ve assembled leading climate scientists and economists to develop transparent, peer‑reviewed methodologies to calculate the past, present, and future climate risk for properties and asset classes spanning real estate, infrastructure, and companies. Using physics‑based deterministic models, we predict the likelihood of floods, wildfires, hurricanes, and other hazards at any location on Earth, along with associated damage and downtime.

Our customers: We aim to incorporate climate risk data into every financial decision made today. We are relied on every day by:

• Institutional investors like Norges Bank Investment Management and Blackstone.
• Banking enterprises, including Bank of America and Fifth Third.
• Government bodies ranging from Fannie Mae to the US State of Connecticut.
• Millions of everyday users on Zillow, Redfin, Realtor.com, Homes.com, and more.

Come join us and use your talents to change the world.

Team & Role Overview

We are looking for an expert in risk and resilience of the built environment. Our Science teams build world‑class hazard models across several perils, and this person will work with them to build world‑class loss models of the risk for a variety of asset types. The loss models will represent structure damages and associated downtime from exposure to natural hazards like flood, wildfire, and wind, enabling our customers to connect physical risk to financial risk. The Risk & Resilience Modeler will have a background in a combination of engineering, materials science, resilience, cost estimation, and data science. A successful candidate will demonstrate the capability to solve technical challenges in data‑poor areas.

What you’ll do

• Connect climate and financial risk by developing custom loss models representing impacts to structures and infrastructure assets globally to pair with First Street’s hazard models.
• Create models of structure damage, repair time, and indirect impacts using a combination of approaches including first principles of engineering, cost estimation, statistics, and machine learning.
• Analyze historical loss observational data to improve model accuracy, identify quality control issues, and develop suggested remedies for identified issues.
• Perform statistical analysis to validate loss model predictions and assess model uncertainties.
• Conduct background research and use insights from the current state of academic literature to inform approaches in quantitative modeling.
• Analyze building codes and exposure datasets to identify common construction practices globally to inform loss model section.
• Create property level adaptation scenarios that enable customers to understand the return on investment of personal property protections.

What you’ll need

• Ph.D. (preferred) or Master’s degree with 3 years experience in structural engineering, civil engineering, operation research, or a related field.
• Strong background in vulnerability developments, statistics, and/or quantitative analytics.
• Hands‑on experience in developing risk models for buildings or infrastructure systems using machine‑learning models or statistical methods.
• Experience working with multi‑hazard data, catastrophe models, building‑level damage data, and construction cost estimation data.
• Expertise using scripted languages like Python.
• Expertise in a science‑based approach with a high degree of concern for reliability, accuracy and reproducibility.

What will make you stand out

• Experience in developing scalable and generalized catastrophe risk models.
• Strong publication record.
• Proficiency with source control platforms such as Git.
• Research experience in the latest resilience modeling, technical guidelines, etc.
• ML/AI experience.
• Expertise with big data analysis in high performance compute environments, either on premises or on cloud platforms including AWS, GCP, and/or Azure.
• Hands‑on experience in building loss models from scratch.

Compensation and Benefits

Our anticipated US base salary compensation range for this role is $90,000-$125,000 plus competitive benefits package, which includes bonus, 401(k) with company match, paid time off, paid parental leave, and comprehensive health benefits. Actual compensation will vary depending on factors such as work location as well as additional factors such as a candidate’s qualifications, skills, experience, competencies, and relevant education. Your recruiter can share more about the specific salary range for your location during the hiring process.

How we work

• Impact: We only focus on things that move the needle.
• Drive: We are driven by the role we play in connecting climate change to financial risk.
• Ownership: This is our company and we act accordingly.
• Urgency: We move quickly because the world depends on it.
• Resilience: We have a growth mindset in all that we do.

What we offer

• Competitive salary commensurate with experience.
• Ownership interest in the company via Employee Stock Option Plan.
• Hybrid Schedule with in‑office work days on Monday, Wednesday and Thursday.
• 15 vacation days along with 8 statutory company holidays, 5 days for winter break office closure, and 10 sick days.
• Healthcare monthly premium covered at 100% for employee or a significant contribution for family plans.
• Vision and dental benefits with partial employee contribution.
• 12 weeks of paid parental leave.
• Access to One Medical, Teledoc, HealthAdvocate, Kindbody, and Talkspace.
• Company 401k program.
• Commuter benefits.
• Life Insurance.
• Tech startup environment.
• Weekly team meals and an office stocked with coffee and snacks.
• Working on the world’s biggest issue with other passionate professionals.

We are an equal opportunity employer and value diversity at our company. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status.