Scientific Analyst

About the Company 

The mining industry has steadily become worse at finding new ore deposits, requiring >10X more capital to make discoveries compared to 30 years ago. The easy-to-find, near-surface deposits have largely been found, and the industry has chronically under-invested in new exploration technology, relying on the manual techniques of yesteryear – even as demand accelerates for copper, lithium, and other metals to build electric vehicles, renewable energy, and data centers.

KoBold builds AI models for mineral exploration and deploys those models—alongside our novel sensors—to guide decisions on KoBold-owned-and-operated exploration programs. In the six years since founding, KoBold has become by far both the largest independent mineral exploration company and the largest exploration technology developer. Our data scientists and software engineers, who come from leading technology companies, jointly lead exploration programs with our renowned exploration geologists.

KoBold has proven its first discovery with materially less capital than the industry average and found one of the best copper deposits ever discovered: the copper is far more concentrated than the global average of copper mines, and this asset alone is expected to generate meaningful revenue for decades. KoBold has a portfolio of more than 60 other projects, each of which has the potential for another high-quality 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 natural resources companies Equinor, BHP, and Mitsubishi.

About the Role

The Scientific Analyst will be a part of the Geoscience and Data Science team, but with interaction with the commercial analytics and business development teams. The Scientific Analyst will report directly to the VP Geoscience. The day-to-day tasks of the analyst will be varied and range from but not limited to, presentation creation, in-depth market research, data analysis, and to provide the necessary data and tools to support operational decision-making. Since KoBold is a startup company operating globally, your role will be dynamic and your role and responsibilities will grow as the company continues to grow.

Responsibilities

The Scientific Analyst will:

• Work closely with mineral exploration project teams and develop a deep understanding of exploration activities, the underlying geoscience, how KoBold develops and deploys its exploration technology, and unique considerations when operating in jurisdictions ranging from the Arctic to southern Africa.
• Help prepare presentations, reports, and visualizations summarizing exploration progress, hypotheses or planned work programs.
• Partner with exploration project leads and department heads to build and maintain budget forecasts, track actuals. Identify and implement process improvements for data workflows, project tracking, and reporting.
• Conduct cost-benefit analyses for proposed drilling campaigns, technology investments, or regional exploration initiatives.
• Work with the commercial analytics team to identify global trends affecting metal demand. 
• Work with the business development team to track companies exploring in similar terrains or commodities to help identify potential corporate opportunities.
• Support initiatives to partner with universities and exploration leaders from other companies to uplift university programs, support post-graduate studies, and provide student mentoring.
• Support initiatives for teams to meet in-person, at offsites, field mapping exercises, research collaborations etc.
• Help build, deliver and monitor professional development programs, identifying training, conference, and continuous learning initiatives.
• Act as the business owner for managing geological software systems and licensing requirements.

Qualifications

• Intellectual curiosity and eagerness to learn about all aspects of mineral exploration, particularly in the geology domain. Enjoys constantly learning such that you are driving insights through using our tools in exploration and willing to work directly with geologists in the field.
• Ability to explain technical problems to and collaborate on solutions with domain experts who are not geoscientists (e.g. data scientists/software engineers). 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 an evolving 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.
• A valid passport and willingness to travel to observe our work at Mingomba or at an exploration site around the world. Travel for this role typically does not exceed 1-3 trips per year.

A great candidate will have:

• Education in science or math (geoscience, physics, chemistry, astronomy/astrophysics, or mathematics is preferred)
• Experience with Python or other scientific computing language
• At least 1 year of experience in technology, natural resources, or finance
• A strong orientation toward thinking from first principles with respect to science, technology, economics, and business
• A high degree of independence and the ability to work effectively with limited supervision
• Excitement about working on a wide array of problems
• Excellent communication and data presentation skills, including the ability to effectively communicate with both business and technical teams
• Excellent organizational skills
• Flexibility to accommodate meetings with staff in different time zones, and occasional travel

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 $100,000 - $150,000, plus equity and benefits.

Remote: Candidates can be located anywhere in South Africa, Zambia, United Kingdom, or Eastern United States or Canada. All candidates must be legally authorized to work from any of these locations.