About the role
We’re looking for a mission‑driven Applied Scientist – forest lidar & 3D ML to join our Earth Analytics (EA) team. In this role, you will principally address a fundamental research challenge within a high‑impact commercial setting: automating the segmentation of individual trees from complex terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) point clouds. This work will directly impact and power Sylvera’s Biomass Atlas product, which is becoming widely adopted for carbon accounting applications throughout carbon markets. You will have exclusive access to our world‑leading ground‑truth, labeled dataset of 3D forest point clouds collected from forests around the world.
Responsibilities
- Develop, train, and deploy 3D deep learning models (e.g., sparse convolutions, PointNet, TreeLearn or other similar architectures) to automate tree instance segmentation and Quantitative Structure Model (QSM) generation.
- Translate experimental ML research into robust, reproducible code, working closely with our production engineering team to deploy models at scale.
- Collaborate with field teams and scientists to ensure model outputs align with biological reality and accurately capture complex forest structures.
- Take full ownership of an open applied research problem – scoping, prototyping, and iterating quickly to find solutions where no guaranteed blueprint exists.
- Work in the lidar team to improve existing data products and methods to more efficiently undertake existing and ongoing manual segmentation and quality assurance.
- Beyond segmentation, work with the wider EA team to solve other complex technical challenges involving point cloud and geospatial data, for example retrieving metrics characterising forest structure from high‑density aerial lidar, forest carbon modeling, uncertainty quantification and automated tree species recognition.
Qualifications
- Deep expertise in 3D point cloud processing and machine learning applied to 3D spatial data.
- Highly proficient in Python and the modern spatial/lidar software stack (e.g., PDAL, laspy, Open3D).
- Domain knowledge in forest ecology.
- A strong commitment to climate and ecosystems of the earth.
- A self‑starter who thrives in a constantly evolving environment, ideally with early‑stage experience.
Benefits
- Equity in a rapidly growing startup.
- Private health insurance and life assurance.
- Unlimited annual leave – and encouragement to actually use it.
- Enhanced parental leave.
- Up to 20 days paid sick leave.
- Access to mental health support.
- Monthly team socials.
Location
London, Old Street. We work flexibly but encourage people to come to the office regularly, especially for 1‑to‑1s, retrospectives and divisional meetings.
Equal Employment Opportunity
Sylvera is an equal opportunity employer: we value diversity. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, colour, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status.
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