Freelance Remote Net Developer Jobs in California

ABOUT VIBRANT PLANET

We are a team of leaders in fire science, applied science, forestry, policy, and tech who work with land managers, community risk managers, utilities, and insurers to drive action that lowers the risk of destructive wildfire. Our cloud-based, AI-driven platform modernizes land management planning, community risk assessment, and monitoring through scenario building, decision support, and treatment outcome detection.

Our fire science subsidiary, Pyrologix, produces leading wildfire science and models that quantify wildfire hazard and risk, and the benefits of mitigation action. This science powers the core Vibrant Planet platform and supports our work across utilities, insurance, and other sectors.

Vibrant Planet is backed by climate and resilience leaders including Grantham Foundation, Earthshot, Elemental Excelerator, Ecosystem Integrity Fund, Cisco, and Halogen Ventures. For more information, visit vibrantplanet.net and pyrologix.com.

ABOUT THE ROLE

We are seeking a versatile, hands-on data engineer to help us design, build, and scale the data pipelines that power Vibrant Planet’s platform. In this role, you will own and evolve the pipelines and systems that transform diverse raw data sources into reliable, high-quality data products used by clients at the local, state, and federal level to make decisions about wildfire risk, forest health, and land management.

You will work across the engineering organization, partnering with scientists, analysts, and product engineers to ensure data flows efficiently from ingestion through transformation to delivery. You’ll have opportunities to influence architecture decisions, introduce modern tooling, and help define best practices as we continue to grow.

As a startup, we are building an engineering culture that is collaborative, innovative, and reflective of the individuals who compose it. We are looking for someone who thrives in a dynamic environment and is excited to work with the team to define best practices, solve complex challenges, and shape the future of our technology.

This is a remote role, so working comfortably and effectively in a distributed team is crucial.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

• Design, build, and maintain scalable, reliable data pipelines for ingesting, transforming, and serving large and diverse geospatial datasets.

• Develop and drive data quality standards, including validation checks, monitoring, and alerting, to ensure high-quality data is delivered to downstream consumers and clients.

• Design and optimize data models, storage formats, and query patterns for analytical and operational use cases.

• Collaborate with engineers, data scientists, and other stakeholders to understand data requirements and deliver solutions that meet business needs.

• Lead and participate in development lifecycle activities including design, coding, testing, and production releases.

• Contribute to our evolving engineering culture, standards, tooling, and processes.

• Mentor and support other engineers and provide thoughtful code reviews.

• Comply with Vibrant Planet’s Information Security Policy and the full security responsibilities detailed in the Employee Handbook, including complete required security training, safeguard customer and company data, keep credentials secure, and report suspected security incidents or policy violations through established channels.

• Follow secure development practices, adhere to established change management processes for production systems, protect the confidentiality and integrity of customer data, and promptly address security vulnerabilities in your area of responsibility.

REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS

• 5+ years of software engineering experience, with a focus on data engineering.

• Proficient in Python. Ability to write clean, well-tested, production-quality code.

• Experience using

  • AI tools (e.g. Claude Code) to develop and review code.

  • Cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, or Azure), including services for storage, compute, and networking.

  • Orchestration frameworks (e.g., Airflow).

• Familiarity with data modeling concepts and SQL proficiency across analytical and transactional databases.

• Understanding of CI/CD pipelines and software engineering best practices (version control, testing, code review).

PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS

• Experience with geospatial data formats and tools (e.g., PostGIS, GDAL, GeoPandas, Rasterio).

• Docker, Kubernetes, and container orchestration.

• Experience with data warehouses, data lakes, or lakehouses using tools such as Snowflake, BigQuery, Redshift, Delta Lake, or similar.

• Infrastructure as Code (IaC) using Terraform, Pulumi, or CloudFormation.

• Education or experience in wildfire, forest management, environmental science, or other natural resources fields.

COMPENSATION & BENEFITS

Salary Range: $100,000 – $200,000

• Health, dental, and vision insurance

• 401(k) plan

• Unlimited PTO policy

• Company equity

• Cell phone stipend (per pay period)

• Home office setup allowance (one-time)

EQUAL OPPORTUNITY EMPLOYER

Vibrant Planet is committed to diversity. We encourage applicants from all cultures, races, colors, religions, sexes, national or regional origins, ages, disability status, sexual orientation, gender identity, military, or other status protected by law to apply.
We are most interested in finding the best candidate for the job, and that candidate may come from a less traditional background, but have capacity to grow into and thrive in the position after some mentoring. We do not require that you have experience with every job description task. We will consider any equivalent combination of knowledge, skills, education, and experience to meet minimum qualifications. We encourage each candidate to think broadly about their unique background and skill set and how it may relate to the role.

While we welcome applicants from all backgrounds, we regret that we are unable to provide visa sponsorship (including H-1B) at this time. Candidates must already be authorized to work in the U.S. without the need for sponsorship.