Telemetry Engineer

Telemetry Engineer WindBorne Systems is supercharging weather forecasts with a unique proprietary data source: a global constellation of next-generation smart weather balloons targeting the most critical atmospheric data. We design, manufacture, and operate our own balloons, using the data they collect to generate otherwise unattainable weather intelligence. Our mission is to eliminate weather uncertainty, and in the process help humanity adapt to climate change, be that predicting hurricanes or speeding the adoption of renewables. We are building a future in which the planet is instrumented by thousands of our microballoons, eliminating gaps in our understanding of the planet and giving people and businesses the information they need to make critical decisions. The founding team of Stanford engineers was named Forbes 2019 30 under 30 and is backed by top-tier investors, including Khosla Ventures and Footwork VC. Our balloons fly for weeks or months at a time, transmitting atmospheric observations from everywhere on Earth — over oceans, deserts, and polar regions where no ground infrastructure exists. Every byte we send home travels through satellite links that cost real money, and every watt we spend on comms is a watt we can't spend on science. As we scale from hundreds to thousands of balloons aloft simultaneously, telemetry cost and efficiency become existential. We're looking for someone whose entire job is to own, monitor, quantify, and relentlessly optimize our end-to-end telemetry pipeline — from onboard data compression and encoding through satellite uplink/downlink to ground-side ingestion. You'll work across firmware, server infrastructure, and operational tooling to squeeze every bit of value out of every byte we transmit. RESPONSIBILITIES - Own the full telemetry cost model: instrument, measure, and report on per-balloon and fleet-wide communications spend - Continuously optimize onboard compression algorithms, encoding schemes, and transmission scheduling to minimize bandwidth while maximizing data quality - Monitor constellation-wide telemetry health and catch regressions before they become expensive - Evaluate and integrate alternative communication links as they become available - Build dashboards and alerting to make telemetry cost and performance visible to the whole team - Collaborate with firmware, flight software, and operations engineers to balance data needs against link constraints - Develop and maintain tooling for A/B testing telemetry configurations across the fleet SKILLS AND QUALIFICATIONS Required - Strong fundamentals in digital communications, data compression, or information theory - Systems-level thinking — comfortable reasoning across firmware, networking, and backend infrastructure - Experience with constrained embedded communication systems (satellite, IoT, or similar low-bandwidth links) - Proficiency in Python and C/C++ - Data analysis chops — comfortable building queries, dashboards, and cost models from raw telemetry data - Relentless optimization mindset — you find 5% savings exciting, not boring - Comfort with production systems: you'll be tuning parameters on a live constellation, not just running simulations Nice to Have - Experience with Iridium SBD or other satellite modem protocols - Background in aerospace, weather systems, or balloon/UAV operations - RF systems knowledge - Experience with cost optimization at scale (cloud, telecom, or similar) BENEFITS - 401(k) - Dental insurance - Health insurance - Vision insurance - Unlimited PTO - Stock Option Plan - Office food and beverages Salary - $100,000–$180,000** We are considering a range of backgrounds and experience levels for this position and adjust our offers accordingly to be competitive with market rates. LOCATION 1600 Bridge Pwky, Redwood City, CA. In person required.