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Terra AI
Redwood City, California, United States
Source: Terra AI careers · View original posting
From Terra AI's posting. “We” and “our” refer to the employer.
Terra AI is building a new category at the intersection of artificial intelligence, geoscience, and critical resource development.
As global demand for copper, lithium, nickel, rare earth elements, geothermal energy, and other strategic resources accelerates, the mining and subsurface industries face a growing challenge: traditional exploration methods remain slow, expensive, and highly uncertain. Terra AI was founded to help solve this problem by redefining how critical resources are discovered, evaluated, and developed.
By combining advanced machine learning, probabilistic modeling, and deep geoscience expertise, Terra AI helps exploration and mining companies make faster, more informed subsurface decisions with greater confidence and capital efficiency. The company’s platform integrates geological, geophysical, and drilling data into intelligent systems designed to improve targeting accuracy, accelerate discovery timelines, and reduce exploration risk.
Backed by Khosla Ventures, BHP, and Rio Tinto, Terra AI works with industry leaders to bring a more informed, data-driven approach to critical resource development.
Terra AI’s mission is to define the new global standard for data-driven critical resource development — breaking the cost and time curve required to support electrification, energy security, and the global energy transition.
The company operates with a strong partnership mentality, combining technical rigor, candid communication, continual learning, and environmental stewardship to help modern exploration teams solve some of the world’s most important resource challenges.
Who you are
You’re an engineering leader and a builder. You have taken technically novel ideas beyond the prototype stage and turned them into dependable systems that real teams and customers can use. You know the difference between demonstrating a research result and engineering a capability that is reproducible, maintainable, and ready to scale.
You bring deep software and systems architecture judgment, strong AI/ML fluency, and the ability to work alongside research scientists without needing to be a frontier-AI researcher yourself. You can tell when a research capability is ready to engineer, when more experimentation is needed, and where engineering feedback can sharpen the next research priorities.
You’re equally comfortable reviewing an architecture, debating a model-performance tradeoff, and recruiting the engineers who will build the system. You have built teams and technical practices rather than only inherited mature organizations, and you know how to create discipline without burying a fast-moving team in process.
Most importantly, you want to build. The opportunity to establish the engineering function between Research and Product excites you precisely because the architecture, standards, team, and operating model are still taking shape.
This is both a technical and organizational leadership role. You’ll personally shape early architecture decisions, recruit exceptional engineers, establish thoughtful design and delivery practices, and create strong working relationships with Research, Product, and Platform. Over time, you’ll develop leaders and a team that can mature new technologies repeatedly without relying on individual heroics.
Success here means creating an engineering capability, not simply managing a delivery queue. You’ll balance technical ambition with reliability, speed, and cost while helping frontier research become technology that Terra AI and its customers can depend on.
Core responsibilities
Build Terra AI’s technology-development organization, including early hiring, team design, leadership development, operating cadence, and clear interfaces with Research and Product
Own software and systems architecture for research-derived capabilities, including backend decomposition, APIs, data flows, abstractions, interfaces, and reusable technical components
Translate uncertain research results into executable engineering programs with owners, dependencies, risks, milestones, and technical exit criteria without imposing false certainty on R&D
Partner closely with research leaders to surface engineering constraints, inform research priorities, and identify the advances that unlock the most valuable next capabilities
Partner with Product and Platform to define clear technical contracts and delivery standards so engineered capabilities can be integrated into enterprise products without rebuilding their foundations
Remain a hands-on technical executive through architecture reviews, design decisions, technical mentorship, and engineering standards while building a durable leadership bench
Compensation
The annual base salary range for this position is $300,000–$400,000. Actual compensation will depend on experience, qualifications, skills, location, and other job-related factors. This role is eligible for equity and Terra AI’s benefits package, including medical, dental, vision, life insurance, FSA, and a 401(k) with company match. Applications may be submitted through the job posting; the application closing date will be provided when the role is published.
We’re committed to building a workplace where people with different backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives can do their best work. Terra AI also provides reasonable accommodations to qualified applicants and employees with disabilities. If you need an accommodation during the application or interview process, please let us know.
Terra AI is an equal opportunity employer. We make employment decisions based on qualifications, merit, and business needs, without regard to race, color, ancestry, national origin, religion, creed, age, disability, medical condition, genetic information, sex, gender, pregnancy or related medical conditions, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, marital status, reproductive health decision-making, military or veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by applicable federal, state, or local law.
LAYIQ is an independent job-discovery service. This listing does not imply a partnership with or endorsement by the employer. Review the original posting for current details and availability.
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