Founder, CTO, Marine Swarm Robotics
Job Description
About Marble
Marble is a climate tech venture studio. Our north star is to erase billions of tons from annual greenhouse gas emissions and create a thriving future.
We partner with scientists, engineers and operators to create new deeptech companies that solve hard climate problems — slash industrial emissions, remove carbon from the atmosphere, and cool the planet — while reshaping multi-billion $ industries.
We're proud to be backed by leading climate investors across Europe and the US.
The Problem: Ocean Data Intelligence For Climate
The ocean is on the frontline of climate change. It is the largest carbon sink on the planet, absorbing a quarter of our emissions and regulating global weather patterns. At the same time, climate change is making oceans warmer, more acidic, and depleted of oxygen, threatening marine ecosystems and food security for billions.
The ocean is also the next frontier of climate solutions. Much of the world’s food demand could be met with sustainable seafood and seaweed cultivation. Offshore wind and marine power could provide 20 times the global electricity demand, and are expected to grow 50-100x by 2050. Marine carbon removal (mCDR) is one of few CDR approaches that could reach the multi gigaton scale required for net zero. Marine genomics and metagenomics could unlock tremendous value for bio-based materials and biotechnology.
Monitoring ocean health and growing a trillion $ regenerative blue economy will both require rapidly scalable ocean intelligence systems. However, while the oceans cover 70% of the Earth’s surface, only 5% have been thoroughly explored to date. This is in part due to cost, difficulty and limit of operation of current marine data collection systems. As a result, many parts of the worlds’ ocean that are potential sites for climate solutions lack necessary and crucial baseline data to make informed decisions and create the best approaches.
The Opportunity
We are developing a breakthrough ocean data intelligence solution to provide scalable baseline data collection for critical marine industries — fisheries and aquaculture, marine renewable energy, biodiversity and marine genetic resources, marine protected areas (MPAs) assessment, and MRV (measurement, reporting, verification) for marine CDR.
A key part of our solution is the operationalization of coordinated underwater vehicles and its related data analysis. We leverage major advancements on the scientific and technical fronts, combined with a custom networking stack for various applications.
We are looking for a stellar individual to join as Co-Founder & CTO.
- The project is led by an exceptional CEO and Co-Founder, a marine robotics engineer with experience building autonomous marine systems, strengthening strong relationships with the right stakeholders, and deep exposure in climate tech and marine ecosystems. Key commercial and technical concepts have been de-risked, but there is a lot of room for technical creativity: we are super early!
- The CTO and Co-Founder position is broad. You will work closely with the CEO & scientific advisors to de-risk key technical aspects of the project and develop a scalable technology platform that can be deployed across multiple sites. The CTO role will be responsible for leading the technical development of the project, specifically on the hardware and software robotics stack. This process will be complemented by customer acquisition & marine robotics background of the CEO, the scientific expertise of our close advisors, & key first technical hires.
The startup will be located partly in Germany (CEO) and in the US (East Coast NYC or Boston area, preferably). The CTO will be required to be full-time at the US location. We welcome both local and international applicants interested to relocate (we can help with this!).
Ideal Background(s)
If you are a mission-driven individual with a passion for ocean technology and climate action, with experience in one of the areas below, we would love to hear from you!
- Robotics engineer with experience in design of embedded, software or control systems, ideally knowledge of marine robotics applications such as floats, AUVs, ROVs or other underwater systems
- OR Software engineer with applied experience in network intelligence, path planning and multi vehicle coordination
Nice to have:
- Experience and expertise on marine and underwater environments, experience at sea
- Experience leading a technical team from prototype to serial deployment
- International career, project management experience, navigating complex regulatory environments, team management & community engagement.
Who We Are Looking For
We encourage you to apply even if you feel you don’t meet all requirements above. We know that some skills can be learned while you are building.
We value intelligence, creativity and Founder Potential:
- You dream of founding your own company and building a stellar team.
- You are a pragmatic optimist with a driving motivation to mitigate climate change.
- You know how to communicate about deeply technical subjects in a way that speaks to non-technical individuals to spark their interest
- You are self-motivated, outcome-focused, and action-oriented. You enjoy working on multiple project areas with an interdisciplinary team, in a fast-paced environment.
- You are naturally inquisitive and curious, able to quickly grasp key concepts, and go deep enough to surface non-obvious insights.
- You approach radically new ideas with an open mind. You get to the salient questions quickly, and your first instinct is to ask how they scale.
- You understand that innovation starts with people. You enjoy building collaborations within a team and with external partners.
What We Offer
As Co-Founder and CTO you will partner with a Marble Founder in Residence who has been developing this project and will take the CEO role of the new company.
You will have the opportunity to meet them before making any big commitment — to learn more about the idea and evaluate how well you’d be working together.
We offer (among other things)
- A €2,500 monthly allowance during your participation in the programme
- A €250,000 pre-seed investment on startup creation, if you are successful. You and your team will own 80% of the company at pre-seed.
- Full-stack support in our venture creation programme
- Mentorship and guidance at every step of the way
- Hands-on support across technology and market research, landing interviews with experts and customers, techno economic modelling, roadmap and scaleup strategy, sourcing your future co-founders and advisors, and more
- Access to an unparalleled network across science, industry, talent, investors, mentors, and other climate deeptech founders
- Access to our research insights, knowledge base and curated resources
- Weekly check-ins, work sessions in our Paris HQ (or remote) and continuous peer learning with other programme participants
- Seed Fundraising support after the programme. Introductions to the best seed investors and help with term sheet negotiation.
- Administrative support for relocation, we’ll help as much as we can!
How to Apply
We are looking for the best candidate - so you are welcome to apply as soon as possible.
We believe that a diverse group of minds is key to solving the climate crisis. We strongly encourage women and people of color to apply.
Studies have shown that under-represented candidates are less likely to apply for a role unless they feel they meet every single qualification.
We are committed to building a diverse, inclusive and mission-driven cohort. If you’re excited about the programme but your past experience doesn’t align perfectly with what you read on our website, we encourage you to apply anyways!
FAQs
For a full list of FAQs, please visit our website.