Flight Meteorologist

At Radical, we're embarking on a mission to revolutionize how we connect and observe our planet. Our focus is on taking aerospace technology to new heights - literally. We are building high-altitude solar-powered aircraft designed to fly continuously in the stratosphere.

We are assembling a dynamic team of engineers and builders ready to propel our technology to the next level. If you're passionate about advancing innovative technology and love challenging engineering projects, Radical is the startup for you. Join us and push the boundaries of what's possible.

Core responsibilities

• Characterise the atmospheric processes that matter to our aircraft, including turbulence and the processes that drive it, across all altitudes and regions where we fly.
• Build operational metrics from atmospheric models and data that quantify the conditions relevant to our aircraft operation to generate actionable outputs for the flight operations team.
• Own the full operational weather forecast process, from determining relevant metrics and forecasting operational windows, to making the weather go/no-go decision before each flight.
• Use and run numerical atmospheric and weather models to forecast the conditions ahead of a flight.
• Develop and improve Radical's in-house atmospheric models and validate them against real-world measurements.
• Apply cutting-edge atmospheric research to flight operations, including utilization of atmospheric energy on long-duration stratospheric flight.

Required skills

• A Master's or PhD in atmospheric science, meteorology, physics, or a related field, with a strong background in atmospheric dynamics - particularly turbulence and the structure of winds.
• Experience developing or working with numerical weather and atmospheric models, and with large gridded and observational datasets in common formats (e.g. GRIB, NetCDF, HDF5, Zarr) - including real-world observations such as radiosonde or balloon soundings and field campaigns.
• Experience turning model and observational data into quantitative metrics or products that downstream users can act on.
• Demonstrated experience modelling a physical phenomenon and validating it against real-world measurements.
• Proficiency in Python and the scientific computing stack, and comfort working on Linux and the command line.

Preferred (but not required) skills

• Experience with clear-air turbulence, wind shear, or mesoscale and upper-atmosphere phenomena such as gravity waves.
• Experience applying forecasts operationally - supporting flight or field operations, or feeding metrics into planning or autonomous systems.
• Familiarity with gliders, soaring, high-altitude platforms, or ballooning.

Radical is an equal opportunity employer. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, marital status, veteran status, disability, or any other protected status. All qualified individuals are encouraged to apply, and we strive to create a workplace that reflects the diversity of our community and promotes inclusion. We believe that diversity and inclusion are essential to fostering innovation, collaboration, and success, and we are dedicated to providing an inclusive and welcoming environment for all employees.