Freelance Math Question Writer Jobs in El Segundo, CA

Fellowship projects change with Rainmaker's research and operational priorities. Examples of the work our quantitative atmospheric-science team may pursue include:

• Estimating seedable hours and program opportunity for a proposed or existing operating region.
• Quantitatively evaluating cloud-seeding operations, targeting decisions, or factors associated with precipitation yield.
• Building ground-truth datasets and validation methods for forecasting, retrieval, or machine-learning systems.
• Verifying forecasts or automating a meteorological analysis used by operations.
• Comparing program designs, targeting strategies, or operational constraints across candidate regions.

• Work with your research lead to translate an atmospheric, operational, or program-design question into measurable quantitative criteria.
• Build and document the quality-controlled dataset required for the assigned project.
• Apply appropriate statistical, climatological, geospatial, verification, or decision-analysis methods.
• Compare results across relevant reanalysis, NWP, satellite, radar, terrain, operational, or in-situ data sources.
• Incorporate practical operational constraints when they are relevant to the question.
• Quantify uncertainty, missingness, bias, and sensitivity to assumptions.
• Create maps, summaries, and decision-oriented outputs for scientists, operators, and program designers.
• Build a documented and reusable workflow that the team can extend to future questions.
• Deliver a final artifact such as a dataset, analysis, evaluation framework, operational tool, technical report, or presentation.

• Current undergraduate, master's, or PhD students; postdoctoral researchers; recent graduates; and other early-career researchers are all eligible.
• Background in meteorology, atmospheric science, applied mathematics, statistics, physics, hydrology, geospatial science, or a related field.
• Strong Python and quantitative-analysis ability.
• Experience with meteorological, climate, geospatial, radar, satellite, or model data.
• Ability to make ambiguous definitions explicit and test the sensitivity of results to assumptions.
• Strong scientific judgment about uncertainty, representativeness, and the difference between an analytical proxy and operational ground truth.
• Clear written and verbal communication.
• Availability for full-time, on-site work in El Segundo for the agreed appointment.

• GRIB, netCDF, xarray, reanalysis, NWP, radar, satellite, terrain, or operational datasets.
• Climatology, forecast verification, spatial statistics, time-series analysis, uncertainty quantification, or decision analysis.
• Cloud microphysics, precipitation, orographic meteorology, convection, weather modification, or field operations.
• Reproducible scientific workflows and decision-oriented visualization.

By the end of the fellowship, you will have answered a clearly defined scientific or operational question and delivered a result the atmospheric-science team can continue using. The work should include clear uncertainty and sensitivity analysis and should not present an analytical proxy as more certain than the underlying observations support.

• Paid, full-time, and on-site in El Segundo.
• Three-to-six-month appointment, with four months as the standard duration.
• Rolling applications and project-specific start dates.
• Attached directly to Rainmaker's atmospheric-science team with a named mentor.
• Possible consideration for future full-time roles, without any promise or expectation of conversion.

$8,000 per month

Benefits:

• Full health coverage (medical, dental, and vision insurance)
• Lunch provided when working in-office and a fully stocked kitchenette
• Free EV charging at the HQ