Senior Software Engineer, Decision Science

KoBold Metals; United States; Remote; USD 170,000 - 215,000; Full time

Job summary

KoBold Metals is seeking a Senior Software Engineer, Decision Science, to advance a modern scientific computing stack for mineral exploration. This remote role supports a fast-growing team of data scientists, software engineers, and geologists, delivering scalable decision systems for high-speed, high-quality exploration decisions.

The role emphasizes building production-grade tooling, ML-powered pipelines, and collaboration across disciplines, with occasional field travel and a US-based remote

Qualifications

• 5+ years in decision science with a software focus.
• Proven ability to build production data processing tools.
• Strong foundation in ML including traditional and deep learning methods.

Responsibilities

• Architect, implement, and maintain decision science libraries for KoBold analyses.
• Build tooling to accelerate decision making; prototyping in Jupyter notebooks; scalable pipelines; organize ML outputs.
• Apply engineering best practices such as robust, testable, and composable code.
• Collaborate with data scientists, geoscientists and engineers to advance decision science tech for mineral exploration.
• Occasional travel to exploration sites; travel about twice per year depending on project needs.

Skills

Decision science

Python

ML concepts

xarray

numpy

MLops

Data visualization

Production data

Tools

Jupyter notebooks

Job description

Senior Software Engineer, Decision Science

Remote

Senior Software Engineer, Decision Science

About the Company

In the coming decades, our world needs far more critical minerals including copper, lithium, and cobalt, to build electric infrastructure, vehicles, data centers, and electronics. The mining industry is making 10x fewer discoveries per dollar spent on exploration compared to 30 years ago because the easy-to-find, near surface deposits have largely been discovered.

KoBold is the leading scientific mineral exploration, mine development, and technology development company. Our goal is to turn mineral exploration into a repeatable science to discover the minerals the world needs—by integrating artificial intelligence, human intelligence, and new technology. Our multidisciplinary teams of data scientists, engineers, and geologists work together to build data systems, design new sensors, and establish industry-leading workflows to develop and test subsurface predictions on our exploration projects.

Our first discovery, Mingomba, is a high-grade copper deposit in Zambia, found after spending materially less than industry average. We are developing Mingomba with the same technical rigor that we apply to exploration. The Mingomba team brings together mine and processing engineers, geologists, data scientists, software engineers, and community, health & safety, construction, and operations specialists. By combining industry knowledge and cutting edge technology, we are developing Mingomba into a world class project that has safer and more predictable outcomes for ourselves, partners, and communities. It is expected to create thousands of good jobs for generations.

KoBold runs exploration programs in eight countries, all with the potential for another 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, Durable Capital, StepStone, and Standard Investments; and strategic natural resources companies BHP and Mitsubishi.

About the Role

At KoBold we believe that a modern scientific computing stack will enable systematic mineral exploration and materially improve our rate of mineral discovery. This role is a key ingredient to this strategy. As a member of our scientific computing team, you will apply decision science techniques in order to build scalable systems to help make high-speed, high-quality decisions for our mineral exploration projects. Collaborating with our exceptional team of data scientists, software engineers, and geologists, you will tackle complex scientific problems head‑on and collectively pave the way for 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.

Responsibilities

• Architect, implement, and maintain decision science libraries that will be used in KoBold’s mineral exploration analyses.
• Build tooling to increase the velocity of our decision making, including enabling rapid prototyping in Jupyter notebooks; build experimentation, evaluation, and simulation frameworks; turning successful R&D into robust, scalable pipelines; and organizing ML models and their outputs for repeatability and discoverability.
• Apply–and coach team members to use–engineering best practices such as writing robust, testable and composable code
• Collaborate with data scientists, geoscientists and engineers to invent the modern decision science technology for mineral exploration
• Occasional travel to exploration sites around the world to observe the impact of scientific computing on KoBold’s exploration products and design new technologies to further discovery. Travel is approximately twice per year depending on project needs.

Qualifications

Our ideal candidate will have:

• At least 5 years of experience in the field of decision science with a strong software engineering focus, though most great candidates will have closer to 10.
• Track record of building production quality data processing solutions or tooling that have delivered business value
• Proficiency with foundational concepts of ML, including statistical, traditional and deep-learning approaches
• Proficiency in Python, ideally including array-based packages such as xarray and numpy
• Deep experience with measured scientific data
• Experience in visualizing scientific data for domain experts
• Experience in MLops and in the making of robust ML systems
• Drive to increase the velocity and effectiveness of our data scientists in both experimental and production workflows
• Capacity to dive deep on novel challenging problems in applying decision science to mineral exploration, including understanding a complex domain of geology and mineral exploration practices as well as working with limited, disparate and noisy data sources
• Collaborative attitude to work with stakeholders with different backgrounds (data scientists, geoscientists, software engineers, operations)

Work practices and motivation:

• Ability to take ownership and responsibility of large projects.
• Intellectual curiosity and eagerness to learn about all aspects of mineral exploration, particularly in the geology domain. Open to working directly with geologists in the field. Enjoys constantly learning such that you are driving insights and innovations.
• Ability to explain technical problems to and collaborate on solutions with domain experts who aren’t 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 a 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.
• Ability to independently prioritize multiple tasks effectively.

What to Expect

Joining KoBold means getting the opportunity for hands‑on exposure to our exploration projects around the world. All employees are expected to travel to project sites, with a minimum of one week per year. Field‑facing and technical roles spend significantly more time in the field.

KoBold Metals is an equal opportunity workplace and an affirmative action employer. We are committed to equal employment opportunity for people of any race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, marital status, national origin, age, citizenship, disability, or veteran status.

This position is Full-time

The US base salary range for this full‑time exempt position is $170,000 - $215,000

Location: Remote, Candidates can be located anywhere in the United States or Canada. All candidates must be legally authorized to work in the United States or Canada.

We are committed to diversity and inclusion.

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 hiringprocess or thereafter. Any information that you do provide will be recorded and maintained in aconfidential 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.

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 measurethe effectiveness of the outreach and positive recruitment efforts we undertake pursuant to VEVRAA. Classification of protected categoriesis 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 compensation (or who but for the receipt of military retired pay would be entitled to compensation) under laws administered by the Secretary of Veterans Affairs; or a person who was discharged or released from active duty because of a service-connected disability.

A "recently separated veteran" means any veteran during the three-year period beginning on the date of such veteran's discharge or release from active duty in the U.S. military, ground, naval, or air service.

An "active duty wartime or campaign badge veteran" means a veteran who served on active duty in the U.S. military, ground, naval or air service during a war, or in a campaign or expedition for which a campaign badge has been authorized under the laws administered by the Department of Defense.

An "Armed forces service medal veteran" means a veteran who, while serving on active duty in the U.S. military, ground, naval or air service, participated in a United States military operation for which an Armed Forces service medal was awarded pursuant to Executive Order 12985.