Data Scientist

Job description

Help us decarbonize the cement and concrete industry.

alcemy was founded to reduce the massive CO2 footprint of the cement and concrete industry. Concrete is humanity’s second most used material by volume and its production is responsible for around 8% of global CO2 emissions.

We are changing this! We leverage machine learning to provide smart production control software to the cement and concrete supply chain to improve efficiency and allow for the production of low-carbon cement and concrete at large scale. Our software is used ²⁴⁄₇ in cement and concrete plants to optimize production and reduce carbon emissions today. We are currently enabling our customers to save more than 100 000 tons of CO2 emissions each year and we aim to save 100 million tons per year in 2030.

The Opportunity

• You’ll play a key role in ensuring customers can use our product successfully from a technical perspective—directly contributing to both their satisfaction and our company’s growth.
• You’ll improve internal processes and develop data tools that make routine tasks (like analyses and onboarding) faster and more scalable, enabling us to support more customers with ease.
• You’ll prepare and configure customer data so it’s ready for use by our machine learning models—setting the foundation for great results.
• You’ll work closely with the Customer Success and Product team, giving you broad visibility into company-wide efforts. Your work will help shape internal tooling that fits seamlessly into our ecosystem and creates value across multiple teams.

Within 1 month, you will…

• Complete our onboarding and get guided through our development and CI/CD process.
• Clone your personal copy of our entire production tech stack, including front-end, back-end, and the machine learning pipeline. You can poke and dismantle it to your own liking.
• Learn a lot about cement production and the intricacies of our customers’ data.
• Deploy your first code to production.

Within 3 months, you will…

• Implement the data ingest and configure the machine learning pipeline to onboard your first customer.
• Partner with Customer Success to identify bottlenecks and pain points in the customer data journey, and turn them into actionable improvements.
• Begin contributing to the internal tooling that makes our processes faster, smarter, and more scalable.

Within 6 months, you will…

• Be an integral part of our team:

  • You’ll estimate the time and technical scope of new features as well as their implementation independently, and know how to bring the right people in at the right time.
  • Present and communicate data-driven insights to team colleagues and customers and play an active role in helping them achieve success.
  • Contribute to our tech stack and how we work together as a team.

Your Profile

• You care deeply about tackling climate change and want your work to contribute to meaningful impact.

• You are an experienced data scientist:

  • You have an inquisitive thinking style that helps you investigate complex data to find not only answers to open questions but also the relevant questions themselves.
  • You know your way around Python (incl. its data science stack) and SQL (PostgreSQL).
  • You have a good understanding of machine learning (ideally using time series data).
  • You test your code, can use the command line, and have experience with git and modern CI/CD pipelines.
  • You enjoy creating insightful data visualizations that communicate a clear message.

• You don’t like to sit in an ivory tower, but want to make sure your projects are brought to a successful end and have a real impact:

  • You have some experience managing projects and dealing with internal and external stakeholders. Staying on top of several projects at the same time comes natural to you.
  • You can communicate clearly (verbally and written) and are patient with non-techies.
  • You are a team player and enjoy helping your team members excel.
  • You are detail-oriented, organized, and diligent.
  • You are okay with some meetings in your calendar (and the context switches these bring with them) as you enjoy the exchange with other teams and customers.

• You speak English fluently in a professional setting.

• You’re based in Germany.

Even better:

• You speak German or another European language besides English (to the point where you feel comfortable communicating directly with customers and other people external to our organization).
• You have used Grafana before to build dashboards.
• You have experience with AWS (esp. S3, SQS, SNS, Cloudwatch), terraform, and Kubernetes.

What we offer:

• A company culture where honesty, professionalism, and integrity run deep with an open feedback culture and regular 1:1 meetings.
• Flat hierarchies, efficient decision-making processes, and an agile company structure.
• Competitive market-rate salary aligned with your experience.
• VSOP equity options vested equally over 4 years (for working 40h a week/full time)
• Work fully remotely within Germany or from our office in the heart of Berlin with flexible working hours. We offer a Berlin-based contract with a remote clause, meaning Berlin bank holidays will apply.
• Of course, free drinks, fruit and snacks in the office.
• Regular team activities and team weeks a few times per year.
• Mac or Linux laptop.
• Budget for personal and professional development - 1500€/year & 3 days/quarter.
• English is our main language of communication.
• 28 days of vacation per year and an additional day of vacation every 2 years at alcemy.
• Access to nilo.health - the comprehensive mental well-being platform that provides access to 1-to-1 sessions with psychologists, group sessions and self-guided tools.
• Access to heynanny - flexible childcare and eldercare support with on-demand nannies, eldercare services, live webinars, and one-on-one calls for professional guidance.
• Dog-friendly office with specific rules in place, as well as dog-free areas for work and relaxation.
• Regular knowledge-sharing through our internal masterclasses.

Tech Stack

At alcemy, we use Amazon Web Services (AWS), which enables us to roll out our product at a fast pace. Our infrastructure is managed in terraform and everything runs on Kubernetes. The backend and machine learning tasks use Python, FastAPI, and PostgreSQL, as well as Python’s numeric and data science ecosystem (jupyter, numpy, pandas, scikit-learn, streamlit, plotly, etc.). The frontend uses NextJS and Typescript. Furthermore, we emphasize proper software engineering practice, like CI/CD, merge reviews, and testing to ensure a working production environment.

Hiring Process

• Initial 1:1 screening call (30 minutes)
• Complete a take-home task relevant to the actual work you’d be doing
• A technical interview (90 minutes)
• A team interview (45 minutes)
• Reference check - we contact two references you provide (e.g. former work colleagues)
• Decision

We encourage applicants from diverse backgrounds to apply. Research shows that women and underrepresented groups often only apply if they meet 100% of the criteria. If you’re excited about this role but don’t meet every single requirement, we encourage you to apply anyway. We also understand how stressful interviews can be. Let us know if there is anything we can do to improve the process so you can demonstrate your skills. To do so, contact Magdalena Milecka at [email protected].

Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI) at alcemy

For the past two years, we have been dedicated to enhancing the diversity and inclusivity of our company. We have organized diversity workshops and established a DEI workgroup. By actively collecting feedback, educating our team, and considering new ideas, we have implemented several key improvements:

• Flexible work schedules to help you balance your job with your personal life.
• Access to nilo.health, a comprehensive mental well-being platform that provides 1-to-1 sessions with psychologists, group sessions, and self-guided tools, including sessions with representatives of minorities.
• A diverse team to work with. We have team members across different age profiles, ethnicities, religions, gender identities, and orientations.
• No mandatory vacation periods: use your time off for religious holidays, special events, or however you see fit.
• Collecting feedback from team members during 1:1 meetings with team leaders, AMA sessions with the founders, and through regular engagement surveys.

We’re committed to creating a workplace where everyone feels valued and included. Our journey toward diversity, equity, and inclusion is ongoing, and we’re excited about the progress we’ll make.