Data Scientist
Company Overview
Downforce Technologies is a UK-based VC-funded provider of soil health data. We’re on a mission to accelerate the global transition towards sustainable agriculture to strengthen climate resilience and boost farm productivity. We empower farmers, landowners and supply chain companies with actionable soil health data to deliver sustainable land management solutions.
About the Role
We are looking for a Data Scientist with deep expertise in machine learning and AI, to work on Downforce’s next generation of models for soil health and biodiversity. You will take ownership of model development – from research and experimentation to training, evaluation and deployment – while working across science, engineering and product delivery. You should be comfortable translating cutting-edge research into production-grade systems and collaborating with both technical and customer-facing teams to bring innovative AI solutions to life.
Employment Type: Full-time/Permanent
Location: Remote within EMEA
Reports to: Chief Technology Officer
Key Responsibilities
- Research, design and implement advanced ML and AI models, including leveraging and fine-tuning foundation models.
- Read, interpret and apply state-of-the-art academic research to real-world commercial challenges.
- Develop and deploy scalable ML pipelines, taking full ownership of training, evaluation and operationalisation.
- Work with large, complex and unstructured geospatial and remote sensing data sets.
- Collaborate with engineering and product teams to integrate models into production environments and customer solutions.
- Contribute to the development of cloud-based ML infrastructure for scalable experimentation and deployment.
- Communicate results and insights clearly across scientific, technical and business stakeholders.
- Contribute to the preparation and publication of research papers in peer-reviewed journals.
Required Skills & Qualifications
- Proven experience delivering end-to-end data science and ML solutions, from research and experimentation to deployment.
- Expertise with foundation models.
- Solid understanding of ML lifecycle, from data processing to model deployment and monitoring.
- Strong proficiency in Python and core ML libraries such as PyTorch, TensorFlow, scikit-learn.
- Experience working with AWS (SageMaker, S3 etc.) or similar platforms.
- Skilled in handling large, unstructured data sets such as images, geospatial and sensor data.
- Effective team player with excellent communication skills.
- Ability to work autonomously and take initiative in a fully remote, distributed environment.
- Strong analytical thinking and problem-solving abilities, balancing scientific rigour with commercial pragmatism.
- Experience with GIS, geospatial data, or remote sensing would be extremely advantageous.
- Experience with distributed data processing frameworks such as Dask and Spark would be nice to have.
- 5+ years of relevant professional experience applying ML/AI in a commercial setting.
- PhD or MSc in Computer Science, Machine Learning, Data Science or a related field.
What We Offer
- Competitive salary and benefits.
- Flexible working arrangements.
- Opportunity to work on meaningful projects in environmental and agricultural domains.
- A collaborative, mission-driven team with a strong focus on innovation and impact.
- Ongoing professional development opportunities.
How to Apply
If you’re excited about advancing sustainable agriculture and want to contribute to our mission, we’d love to hear from you.
Please submit your CV, cover letter and any relevant scientific publications to careers@downforce.tech