Senior Lead Machine Learning Scientist
Hippo Harvest - Pescadero, CA
posted 2 days ago
About the position
Hippo Harvest is looking for a highly motivated and creative Senior Machine Learning Scientist to develop machine learning techniques to better understand and predict plant health. This role will integrate multi-modal plant imaging with highly-detailed microclimate conditions each plant experiences. ML scientists will be able to work with Hippo Harvest growers and roboticists to design automated data collection efforts and improve growing conditions. Statistical insights and developed machine learning models will immediately have real world, climate-positive impacts. In a world increasingly impacted by climate change, pollution, and population growth, conventional production of fresh vegetables is unsustainable. Hippo Harvest designs hydroponic grow systems from the ground up for simplicity, robotic automation, and machine learning to build sustainable, economical, and scalable production systems of the future. Compared to field production, greenhouse hydroponic methods use 90% less water, increase yields, reduce food waste, use fewer pesticides, eliminate fertilizer runoff, and allow crops to be grown locally.
Responsibilities
- Build a plant growth simulator that understands how environment and genetics impact plant growth
- Explore, understand, and visualize millions of microclimate and plant growth datapoints from our fleet of robots
- Empower roboticists, growers, and sales teams to make data-driven decisions
- Showcase results and QC on dashboards, making results and algorithms accessible to the entire team
Requirements
- PhD in Computational Biology, Applied Mathematics, Statistics, or a related field
- Experience with modern deep learning (Pytorch, Tensorflow), machine learning (sklearn, XGboost), and statistics (statsmodels, scipy) frameworks
- Proficiency in Python and experience analyzing data with numpy/scipy, pandas, matplotlib, or similar
- Experience with Github, Docker, workflow management tools (Airflow, Metaflow), and cloud compute frameworks (AWS, GCP)
Nice-to-haves
- Expertise with probabilistic machine learning approaches
- Publications in peer-reviewed journals pertaining to machine learning or biology
- Experience working in industry or a start-up environment
- Background in biology, particularly plant sciences and/or agriculture
Benefits
- An exciting and fun work environment where your contributions will make a true difference
- A hybrid environment with 1-2 on-farm days and 3-4 remote days a week
- Competitive salary from $155,000 - $210,000 based on level
- Full benefits package including six weeks of paid vacation, medical/dental/vision/life insurance, twelve weeks of paid parental leave, 401k, company stock options
