Sr. Manager, Agronomic Data Science

We’re adding a Sr. Manager, Agronomic Data Science to drive the creation of infrastructure, digital workflows, modeling, and analysis to enable superior understanding, placement and improved performance of our nutrient efficiency business – in particular our flagship product, SOURCE. Our technology can replace up to 30% of nitrogen fertilizer which accounts for 3-5% of all greenhouse gas emissions worldwide. Using SOURCE at the right time, place, and agronomic conditions is crucial to the product’s success and customer value. 

The Sr. Manager, Agronomic Data Science leads a team with expertise in data science and the systems to perform in-depth analysis. They collaborate closely with functions such as Software Product Management, Product Marketing, Sales Agronomy, Sustainability, and Corporate Marketing, gaining a deep understanding for our grower customers and partner dealers.

This role reports to our VP, Product and can be based in our Emeryville, CA headquarters, or remote, and has expected travel of 10-20% annually. (Well qualified candidates may be considered at Director level.) 

Compensation Target:

Sr. Manager: $150,000 to 178,000, bonus target 10%

Director: $180,000 to 200,000, bonus target 20%

Bonuses are earned based on annual company and individual performance and are prorated based on start date. 

Sound reserves the ability to adjust the compensation range based on the final candidate’s experience, skillset, and geography. In addition to on target earnings, we offer above average equity grants for the industry as we believe that every employee should have a stake in the company’s growth. If you’re above this compensation target, we encourage you to reach out and discuss the entire package and opportunity before deciding not to pursue this position.

Responsibilities

• Drive the development of key insights, tools, and data visualization (50%)
• Uncover insights in the performance of SOURCE in order to optimize customers’ ROI through better placement and usage, incorporating a variety of agronomic factors
• Continuously improve customer and partner-facing precision agriculture tools that enhance our product placement capability, in collaboration with our Software Product Manager
• Create dashboards and interfaces that foster data visibility and actionability for key internal stakeholders
• Identify opportunities, large and small, to create automation and analyses that multiply the effectiveness of our business. Working with Product Management, initiate and manage their development and deployment

• Lead infrastructure construction and development (30%)
  • Create a robust, scalable, and secure data architecture for a range of internal and external agronomic data streams
  • Connect and integrate millions of acres of internal and external agronomic data rapidly and efficiently, leveraging farm information systems like John Deere Operations Center and Climate FieldView
  • Scale up ML modeling, data availability, and analysis to support international growth and sustainability
  • Build for 3x and open paths to 10x and beyond

• Hire, lead, and develop a team (20%)
  • Grow the organization as a combination of a hands-on developer, data architect, and expert data science practitioner with authority to make strategic decisions and lead development
  • Stand up a focused, integrated, and effective agronomic data function at Sound Agriculture, encompassing agronomic data science, analysis, data engineering, data management, and software development
  • Lead and develop that team to drive outstanding performance
  • Serve as a pillar in the community of data science and engineering at Sound, sharing best practice and capabilities with Research, Sustainability, Revenue Operations, Production, Marketing, and Sales

Targeted Skills & Experience

• 5+ years of experience in data science and passion for sustainable agriculture
• Advanced degree in data science, physics, statistics, mathematics, agronomy, or geosciences required; agronomic sciences degree or formal exposure to agronomy is ideal
• Demonstrated ability to build, develop, and get the best from a high-performing team
• Relentless drive to improve data models rapidly and consistently while ensuring robust infrastructure to support rapid scale  
• Expertise–or the ability to develop expertise rapidly–on the complex systems of agricultural production, and the application of that knowledge toward making our customers and company successful
• Experience in the initiation and management of software development projects, from user story creation to requirements, sprint management, acceptance testing, rollout, maintenance, replacement, and retirement
• Familiarity with IT capability analysis and build-versus-buy decision making to properly stage both technical debt and delivery of value
• Demonstrated capability in data architecture, data engineering, and software development
• Experience with data lake and warehouse principles and tools, and the use of cloud services to create right-sized data resources to enable efficient ETL work and support FAIR principles.
• Expertise inPython and other relevant programming languages. Experience with statistics and visualization packages is nice to have.
• Proficiency with Amazon Web Services 

#LI-REMOTE

This role demonstrates our company values by:  

• Boldness: Tackle big questions like “how can we optimize performance of SOURCE across millions of acres, given complex and diverse environmental factors and management practices in production agriculture?”
• Ownership: Make it your professional mission to build and drive rapid progress in one of the most important and complex aspects of our business: using agronomic data to make our customers, our products, and our company more successful
• Respect: Collaborate with a variety of stakeholders who have essential expertise and key stakes in the activities and success of the Agronomic Data Team
• Creativity: Identify data-driven approaches to age-old nutrient efficiency problems in agriculture without being limited by how it’s always been done