Demographics & Socioeconomic Modeling

The Opportunity

Trillions of dollars of investment, aid, and infrastructure decisions are made every year with incomplete information about how communities and economies are actually changing on the ground. Atlas AI exists to close that gap.

We’re a geospatial AI company, spun out of Stanford and founded in partnership with the Rockefeller Foundation, that turns satellite imagery and planetary-scale data into predictive intelligence about economic and demographic change. Our Aperture® Platform serves commercial enterprises, governments, and development organizations who need to understand what’s happening—and what’s coming—in communities around the world.

We are hiring a Senior ML Engineer to advance the demographic and socioeconomic modeling capabilities at the core of our platform. This is not a role where you’ll be handed a well-defined spec. You’ll engage directly with the scientific literature, design novel model architectures, rigorously validate results, and ship production-grade outputs that our partners depend on for high-stakes decisions.

You’ll also be a key voice with our partners and customers, translating complex technical work into clear, trusted deliverables. And as Atlas AI grows, you’ll have the opportunity to build and lead a team.

What You’ll Do

Build From First Principles

• Design, develop, and iterate on geospatial AI/ML models for demographic estimation, socioeconomic measurement, and related domains—grounded in peer-reviewed methodology and validated against real-world ground truth.
• Experiment across model architectures, feature sets, and data sources (satellite imagery, geospatial signals, survey data) to push the frontier of what’s possible in data-scarce environments.
• Document your methods and results clearly so that partners, collaborators, and teammates can understand, trust, and build on your work.

Ship Production-Grade Products

• Write clean, well-tested, maintainable code using professional engineering practices—not just notebooks and prototypes.
• Work within Atlas AI’s engineering stack (GCP cloud infrastructure, CI/CD, workflow orchestration) to deliver robust, scalable model outputs that power the Aperture® Platform.
• Own your workstream end-to-end: break complex projects into components, set milestones, hit deadlines, and coordinate cross-functionally with engineering and product teammates.

Engage Partners & Customers

• Work directly with Atlas AI’s partners across academia, commercial customers, governments, and international development organizations.
• Bring a customer-first mindset: understand partner needs deeply, communicate progress transparently, and deliver results that earn trust.
• Represent Atlas AI’s technical capabilities in partner meetings, technical reviews, and collaborative research.

Grow Into Leadership

• Manage projects and workstreams with accountability for timelines and outcomes.
• Mentor teammates and contribute to a culture of technical excellence and continuous learning.

Who You Are

Required

• 5+ years of professional experience in ML/AI, with a meaningful portion focused on geospatial methods (remote sensing, spatial statistics, earth observation, or related fields).
• Academic background (Master’s or PhD preferred) or equivalent deep expertise in demographics, socioeconomic modeling, population estimation, poverty measurement, or a closely related quantitative social science.
• Demonstrated ability to develop ML models from the research literature through experimentation to production deployment—not just one or the other.
• Strong Python engineering skills and comfort with professional development practices (version control, testing, code review, CI/CD, containerization).
• Experience working with cloud infrastructure (Google Cloud) and large-scale geospatial data processing.
• Track record of managing complex, multi-component technical projects with clear ownership of deliverables and deadlines.
• Excellent communication skills: you can explain your methodology to a PhD collaborator, present findings to a government partner, and write documentation that an engineer can implement from.

Preferred

• Published research in geospatial AI, demographic modeling, or related fields.
• Experience building data products or platforms for users in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs).
• Familiarity with global survey datasets (DHS, LSMS, census microdata) and their strengths and limitations.
• Prior experience in a startup or other entrepreneurial environment.

What Drives You

This role will be a strong fit if you are motivated by the intersection of technical excellence and real-world impact. You believe AI should be built for the whole world—not just the markets with the most data. You’re energized by hard problems, sparse data, and the chance to build something that matters. And you want to do it on a small, high-caliber team where your work is visible, valued, and consequential.

Details

• Reports to: Chief Product Officer
• Location: Remote (US or EU)
• Compensation: $140,000–$175,000 base salary (benchmarked to SF/NY metro markets; adjusted by location based on cost of living and local market data) + meaningful equity in an early-stage company at an inflection point.
• Benefits: We offer a flexible, distributed working environment with competitive benefits

Atlas AI is an equal opportunity employer. We welcome applicants of all backgrounds and do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin, religion, sex, age, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, or veteran status.

Interested? Apply at atlasai.co/careers