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Watershed is an enterprise sustainability platform used by companies like Airbnb, Carlyle Group, FedEx, and Visa to manage climate and ESG data, produce audit-ready metrics for regulatory reporting (CSRD, etc.), and drive real decarbonization. The company operates offices across San Francisco, New York, Denver, London, Paris, Berlin, Sydney, and Mexico City.
As a Climate Data Scientist on the Methodology team, you will develop, maintain, and improve Watershed's built-in sustainability methodologies—translating sustainability science, GHG accounting standards, and emerging regulatory requirements into robust product logic. This is a technical, hands-on role at the intersection of corporate sustainability, sustainability science, data, and software.
Key responsibilities include:
- Developing and maintaining sustainability methodologies that are scientifically rigorous, auditable, scalable, and intuitive for customers
- Partnering with software engineers, data scientists, and product managers to design methodology features
- Working directly in the codebase: reviewing implementations, writing technical specifications, contributing logic, and building tests for scientific correctness
- Interpreting evolving standards (GHG Protocol, sustainability reporting frameworks, sector-specific methodologies) and reflecting them in product
- Investigating complex customer and product questions where sustainability science, data quality, accounting rules, and business context intersect
- Building pragmatic approaches for messy real-world business data, balancing scientific rigor with usability and customer impact
- Collaborating with go-to-market and customer-facing teams to explain methodology choices to customers, auditors, and stakeholders
- Setting the bar for scientific quality by documenting decisions, reviewing changes, and contributing to internal standards
Ideal candidates have a Master's or PhD in climate science, environmental science, sustainability, industrial ecology, or a related quantitative field, plus 5+ years of experience in corporate sustainability, sustainability consulting, carbon accounting, or climate strategy—ideally with large, complex organizations. You should be a systems thinker comfortable with Python codebases, able to read code and make contributions. Strong communication skills across scientific experts, engineers, auditors, and business stakeholders are essential.
Bonus experience includes building carbon accounting methodologies, emissions factor datasets, LCA models, or sustainability software; familiarity with GHG assurance or audit processes; comfort with Python, SQL, or TypeScript; and experience translating complex standards into operational guidance or product requirements.
The role requires 4 days per week in the San Francisco office.
