Position: Head of AI and Data Science

Reports To: CTO

Location: Delhi NCR (Hybrid)

Employment Type: Full-Time

ABOUT US

Takachar helps reduce the impacts of climate change. We have created a small-scale, low-cost, portable machine that can be loaded into the back of tractors and deployed to farms turning crop waste into sellable bioproducts like fuel and fertilizer. Our innovative cost-effective system broadens smallholder farmers' livelihood and business prospects with the generation of additional income through selling these on-demand bioproducts on the market.

The impact? Income and job creation in rural areas, mitigation of CO2 emission and air pollution as well as improved vegetation management mitigating the risks of catastrophic wildfires.

We have been recognized for our work through awards such as Elon Musks XPRIZE Carbon Removal, Prince Williams inaugural Earthshot Prize, and Bill Gates Breakthrough Energy Fellowship.

ABOUT YOU

We run a fleet of distributed pyrolysis reactors that turn agricultural and forestry residue into biochar, and we convert that into verified carbon removal credits. Every credit we issue rests on a chain of evidence that starts at a sensor on a reactor in a village and ends in a monitoring report an auditor signs off on. This role owns that entire chain.

You will own three areas: the data and telemetry platform, the AI and analytics work that sits on top of it, and the carbon credits function that turns it all into issued credits. You will also help our clients do the same for their own projects. The bet behind this role is that these three things are actually one problem, and that whoever holds all of it can build MRV that is faster, cheaper, and more defensible than anyone else in biochar.

This is a leadership role with a small, senior team under it and it is a hands-on role. You will write code, read methodologies line by line, and sit in audit calls. If you want to stop building, this is the wrong job.

WHAT YOU WILL OWN

1. Data & Telemetry Platform

- Own the end-to-end data infrastructure: from IoT telemetry on distributed reactors, field apps, forms, lab reports and APIs, through ingestion and processing, to analytics and reporting.
- Design and operate our Azure stack for IoT telemetry, real-time data processing, warehousing, and operational dashboards serving field teams and partners.
- Make the system auditable by construction: transparent, reproducible, tamper-evident data trails that hold up to third-party verification, not audit trails bolted on afterwards.
- Own data governance, integrity, security and access control, including multi-tenant access where customers see only their own sites.
- Keep it usable for the people who actually feed it field operators, plant staff, farmers and partners with varying technical comfort.

2. AI, Analytics & Reactor Optimization

- Build the analytics layer that turns raw reactor telemetry into operational insight: yield, conversion efficiency, process stability, anomaly and fault detection, downtime drivers.
- Apply ML and AI to reactor optimization process parameter tuning, soft sensors, predictive maintenance, guiding operators toward better runs.
- Feed reactor data analysis back into product development, so the next generation of reactors is designed against evidence rather than intuition.




- Apply AI and automation to accelerate registry compliance workflows from documentation to verification with a focus on speed and accuracy over manual processes.

3. Carbon Credits Digital Monitoring, Reporting, and Verification (dMRV)

- Own dMRV end to end for our projects: monitoring plans, field and lab data collection protocols, monitoring reports, verification audits carried through to issuance.
- Own compliance and listings across major voluntary carbon standards. Maintain deep knowledge of registry methodologies, submission requirements, and regulatory evolution.
- Read methodologies closely, build the documentation that satisfies them, submit it, and answer auditor questions directly.
- Hold the technical line on biochar-specific MRV: biomass characterization, pyrolysis process monitoring, carbon content quantification, permanence tracking, and the analytical chemistry (elemental, proximate, heavy metals) that underpins it.
- Stay ahead of methodology revisions, registry rule changes, and Article 6 / voluntary-market developments, and translate them into changes in how we build and operate.

4. dMRV Product & Hardware Innovation

- Develop scalable MRV protocols and measurement strategies for distributed production assets in remote locations, ensuring rigor and auditability at scale.
- Build software tooling for MRV — internal and, where it makes sense, customer-facing.
- Work with the product team on hardware and instrumentation innovation for measurement: what gets sensed, how it is verified, and how measurement error is bounded and defended.

5. Client Enablement

- Act as the senior technical voice in customer conversations alongside business development.

6. Leadership & Cross-Functional Decision-Making

- Lead and grow a team spanning MRV operations, data engineering, data analysis and field engineering. Hire, set standards, and raise the technical bar.
- Sit with product development, business development and operations on decisions that determine what we build, what we can credibly claim, and what we can sell.
- Translate between worlds fluently: registry rules to engineers, sensor limitations to auditors, technical risk to leadership and buyers.

WHO WE ARE LOOKING FOR We are open on which side you come from. Two profiles work:

Path A — the data/AI builder. You have built and run production data platforms and ML systems, and you want to go deep into carbon markets. You have already done enough reading or project work to know what dMRV demands and why auditability is an engineering constraint, not a documentation exercise.

Path B — the carbon markets operator. You have taken carbon projects through registries and audits to issuance, and you are genuinely technical — you write code, you can architect a data pipeline, you can hold your own with engineers rather than briefing them.

Either way, you must be credible on your primary side and demonstrably able to get deep on the other, fast. This is a role where the two halves compound; someone who only ever does one half will underperform in it.

Required

- 6–8 years of relevant experience, with real ownership of outcomes rather than tasks — or a stronger case made on slope and scope than on years.




- Hands-on technical ability: Python and SQL as working tools, comfort with data pipeline design, cloud data services (Azure preferred; AWS/GCP experience transfers), and databases/warehousing.
- Direct experience with either production data engineering and ML/analytics systems, or carbon project development, MRV execution and registry management in voluntary or compliance markets.
- Working understanding of carbon market fundamentals: additionality, permanence, baselines, credit quality drivers, and how a credit actually gets issued.
- Demonstrated ability to use AI tools as a force multiplier, with concrete examples of time or cost saved.
- Exceptional operational rigor — you build trackers and systems, hold deadlines, and surface risk early rather than at the deadline.
- Comfort with field reality: rural biomass collection sites, pyrolysis operations, and the messy data they produce. Periodic travel is part of the job, not an exception to it.
- Self-starter temperament suited to a lean, fast-moving team — you will make judgment calls without a playbook.

Preferred

- Hands-on experience with biochar, pyrolysis-based carbon removal, or biomass-to-carbon projects.
- Experience with industrial IoT, instrumentation, or telemetry from distributed physical assets.
- Experience building B2B or customer-facing products — you have shipped something external users depended on, and you know the difference between an internal tool and a product another company runs its operations on.
- Software engineering experience — you have designed and shipped an application other people run on.
- Experience preparing or managing PDDs, monitoring reports and verification audits, or engaging methodology developers and scientific advisory bodies.
- Familiarity with Article 6 mechanisms, CORSIA, or emerging compliance-market frameworks.
- Experience building or leading small technical teams.
- Technical background in environmental science, engineering, chemical engineering, soil science, computer science or a related field.
- Genuine interest in climate science. This work is easier and better when you care about the underlying science, not just the market around it.

WHAT THIS ROLE IS NOT

- Not a pure management role. You will be in the code and in the methodology documents.
- Not a role with an established playbook to execute. Much of what world-class dMRV for distributed reactors looks like has not been built yet.
- Not a role where data quality is someone else's problem. If a sensor in the field is lying, it becomes your problem before it becomes flagged by an auditor.

WHY JOIN US Biochar is one of the few carbon removal pathways that works at scale today, and distributed production is what makes it reach the biomass that would otherwise burn. You will sit at the exact point where climate impact, engineering and market credibility meet — deciding what we measure, how we prove it, and what we can honestly sell. We move rapid, we build in the open, and we treat AI as leverage for everyone on the team.

The credits this company issues over the next few years will carry your fingerprints.

TO APPLY

Please send your resume and cover letter to [email protected], thank you!

Please include a three-sentence answer to this: How does a tonne of biochar become an issued carbon credit? We are not looking for a perfect answer — we are looking for whether you have thought about it.

📌 Lead - AI and Data Science (Delhi)
🏢 Takachar
📍 Delhi