Principal AI Research Scientist: Designing Multi-Scale Intelligence for the Energy Transition

San José, Costa Rica

Principal AI Research Scientist: Designing Multi-Scale Intelligence for the Energy Transition

Remote • Full-time • Three-year grant-funded term (renewable)

Link to application: https://noteforms.com/forms/principal-ai-research-scientist-application-tgtkdo

Ready to help shape the next frontier of AI by designing intelligent systems that reason across nested scales—from buildings to cities to nations—to accelerate the global energy transition.

Open Earth Foundation (OEF) is a non-profit research and development organization building open digital infrastructure for planetary stewardship. We develop open digital infrastructure, AI systems, and data platforms that strengthen multi-stakeholder coordination and accelerate environmental protection, climate action, and Earth-system resilience.

We’re a diverse, global team working remotely and collaborating with partners worldwide to make real change possible.

With strong funding and a powerhouse team of innovators, we’re ready to tackle big challenges for a resilient Earth for generations to come and we need the planet’s brightest minds to help solve them!

Your mission, should you choose to accept it:

As the Principal AI Research Scientist for NEST at Open Earth Foundation, you will define the AI research architecture behind a new generation of intelligent systems for multi-scale energy-transition planning. You will set the research agenda, design the nested-agent and reasoning architectures that underpin the programme, and help shape its long-term scientific vision.

NEST (Nested Energy System Transitions) is a three-year research programme funded by Schmidt Sciences through the Decarbonization and Energy Virtual Institute (DEVI) initiative. The programme is developing AI-agent architectures that connect existing energy models across nested spatial, temporal, and organizational scales, from buildings and cities to national systems, and from near-term operations to multi-decadal planning. The goal is to produce coherent energy-transition pathways by advancing both the intelligent systems and agentic research processes needed for cross-scale reasoning and model coupling.

This is an architectural research role, not a production engineering role. You will design and validate new approaches, working closely with consortium Principal Investigators, Active Inference Scientists, and the Full-Stack AI Engineers who translate promising directions into robust systems.

Success in this role could redefine how intelligent systems reason across interacting models, disciplines, and scales—well beyond climate and energy applications.

This position is fully remote and international as our organization works across different time zones.

This position is fully remote and international, full-time, and grant-funded for a three-year term with the possibility of renewal.
Regular overlap with Central European and U.S. Pacific working hours required.
Opportunities to participate in occasional in-person team gatherings.

Priority will be given to applications submitted by August 14th.

The following requirements describe our ideal candidate. If you don't meet some of the requirements, you're encouraged to apply anyway. Let us know if there is something missing and how we can work together to make it up.

Essential Functions and Specific Duties:

Set the AI research direction: Define and drive NEST’s agenda for agentic, probabilistic, and multi-scale intelligence across coupled models.
Design nested intelligence: Co-design nested agents, advanced agent architectures, and the agentic research processes that make cross-scale coupling possible.
Create coherent representations: Explore hierarchical agents, latent-state representations, world models, and uncertainty-aware methods that remain consistent across spatial, temporal, and organizational scales.
Prototype and validate: Turn original research ideas into working prototypes and research instruments through hands-on experimentation and rapid iteration.
Bridge research and production: Hand promising designs and coupling strategies to the Lead Full-Stack AI Engineer to harden into the production platform.
Align with inference science: Partner with the Active Inference Scientist so the intelligence architecture and Bayesian inference layer—including factor graphs, message passing, and convergence—fit together.
Set the scientific bar: Define standards for reproducibility, validation, posterior predictive checks, and comparison with established model couplings and benchmarks.
Publish and represent the work: Shape NEST’s long-term scientific vision and communicate the research through publications, presentations, and external collaborations.

Other:

Actively participate in team building and culture-development activities at Open Earth Foundation.
Contribute to an open, collaborative research culture grounded in rigor, curiosity, and shared purpose.

Qualifications:

PhD advancing the AI/ML field with a track record of original contributions in architectures, reasoning frameworks, or research methodologies—not only applications of existing models.
Deep expertise in probabilistic reasoning, Bayesian methods, machine learning, or related approaches for uncertainty-aware AI systems.
A record of turning ambitious ideas into rigorous research and impactful outcomes.
Hands-on ability to translate research into working prototypes through experimentation and rapid iteration.
Deep technical understanding of modern AI systems and agentic architectures.
A deep commitment to safe, beneficial AI and using AI for the good of humanity.
Strong written and verbal English communication skills.

Strong Preference:

Interest in world models, scientific AI, structured reasoning systems, or multi-scale reasoning
LLM agent architectures, nested or multi-agent design, and tool-use frameworks
Familiarity with energy systems, climate science, or scientific computing

Nice to Have:

Multi-model simulation, co-simulation, or model-coupling frameworks
Active Inference, probabilistic programming, message-passing inference, or factor graphs
Contributions to open-source scientific software
Geospatial data processing, including GeoJSON, H3, or PostGIS

Interpersonal Skills:

Ability to collaborate across AI research, engineering, energy modelling, Bayesian inference, and programme leadership
Ability to explain complex research choices clearly to technical and interdisciplinary audiences
Comfort working independently in a distributed, international research team

Other Qualities:

Dedication to fighting climate change
Intellectual courage, curiosity, and scientific rigor
Focus on real-world impact and open research
Interest in nonprofit, mission-driven work

Compensation and Benefits:

This full-time position offers compensation of $80,000–$130,000/year (USD), commensurate with experience and location and paid in USD.
A defining role at the frontier of agentic and multi-scale AI, applied to global environmental challenges.
Unlimited paid time off, paid holidays, and paid sick leave.
Remote work in a dynamic, international, mission-driven environment.

OEF is an Equal Employment Opportunity Employer. We welcome applicants from all backgrounds and do not discriminate on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, disability, age, religion, national origin, or any other protected characteristic. We celebrate diversity, equity, and inclusion in our teams and believe people should align their work with their purpose. Join us if you love Earth.

We look forward to hearing from you!

We use AI-assisted tools to help organize and summarize application materials. All hiring decisions are reviewed and made by people.