Location: Remote, with regular working-hours overlap with our India-based team
Engagement: Full-time preferred; open to a consulting or part-time arrangement for the right candidate
About The Role
Varaha is hiring a Senior Carbon Modeler to advance the modeling science behind our agricultural carbon projects. We are looking for someone who has taken a Model Validation Report (MVR) from start to finish and can bring that end-to-end experience to a function ready to scale.Agricultural carbon projects live or die on the strength of the underlying model. Varaha is looking for a scientist who has already been through the full arc of a Model Validation Report from calibration to registry submission and is ready to bring that judgment to a modeling function that's scaling fast.
You'll drive calibration, validation, and uncertainty quantification for our VM0042 (and equivalent) projects, stand behind the modeling approach in front of VVBs and outside reviewers, and turn what has historically been ad-hoc scripting into version-controlled, reproducible pipelines that work across geographies. You'll partner closely with our Modeling Lead and Carbon Project Lead, and coordinate day-to-day with the India-based science team despite the time difference.
Core responsibilities
- Run VMD0053-compliant calibration, validation, and uncertainty quantification for VM0042 projects covering both structural validation and project-specific back-modeling.
- Write Model Validation Reports and personally handle VVB and third-party evaluator queries, including Corrective Action Requests and Clarification Requests on the modeling side.
- Design and build Python-based modeling pipelines meant to be reused across regions properly versioned in Git, not throwaway notebooks.
- Defend model selection, parameter choices, and uncertainty treatment in writing, across PDDs, monitoring reports, and rebuttals to reviewer pushback.
- Help set the technical standard for the modeling team as it grows.
What you bring
- A Model Validation Report you've authored or co-authored end-to-end, submitted under Verra, Gold Standard, or a similar registry.
- Real calibration and parameterization experience with a process-based biogeochemical model DayCent, DNDC, DSSAT, or similar.
- Solid grasp of Verra's VM0042 and VMD0053 methodologies, and specifically where structural validation ends and project-specific back-modeling begins.
- Python and Git skills built for production use pipelines that other people can run and trust, plus comfort handling geospatial data.
- An M.S. or Ph.D. in soil science, agronomy, biogeochemistry, environmental science, or an equivalent quantitative field.
- Comfort working remotely with consistent overlap with an India-based team, and openness to occasional travel.
What we Prefer
- Direct experience fielding VVB questions during a validation or verification cycle.
- Bayesian calibration work (PyMC, PEST, or similar) on soil carbon or GHG models.
- Background with smallholder cropping systems in India, Southeast Asia, or Sub-Saharan Africa.
- Experience building ML surrogates for process-based models, or working with remote sensing inputs (Sentinel-2, MODIS, soil property rasters).
- Have used LLM-assisted workflows to speed up model documentation, calibration data extraction, or MVR drafting.
If your experience doesn't line up exactly with the band above but you think you're a strong fit for what we're building, we'd still like to talk we're hiring as much for judgment and alignment as for years on paper.
