Tl;dr

You’ll be the Methodology Analyst in a startup working on solving climate change. Looking for an experienced person with the ability to work with a team in developing and evaluating nature-based and industrial carbon removal methodologies. Nori is a two-sided marketplace with various external stakeholders, and two customer types: demand-side and supply-side customers. You’ll be developing methods and processes to quantify carbon and create digital certificates of carbon removal.

 Summary of Nori

Nori is a startup founded in October 2017 with the mission to enable global engagement to reverse climate change via carbon removal. By providing a marketplace where anyone in the world can pay for and get paid for removing and storing atmospheric carbon dioxide, Nori acts as a financial mechanism that will create new opportunities for climate innovation and carbon removal. 

We’re upgrading on the carbon offset space. Historically carbon offsets have been mired with opacity which then leads to a lack of confidence and trust in what projects are supported. Additionally, most carbon offsets (95%) represent paying someone to do less of a bad thing, i.e. mitigating emissions.

Nori is different in three key ways. First, Nori only supports carbon removal, or carbon sequestration, which is the only method that can actually reverse/negate carbon emissions. Second, Nori is the only platform with end-to-end marketplace of credits. Because we work directly with project owners who “supply carbon removal”, maintain the retirement of carbon removal credits, and track this all on the blockchain, Nori is providing a transparent and credible way to pay for carbon removal directly from project developers with no price markups. Lastly, with Nori’s API, businesses can offer environmental action and engagement directly to their customers at check-out or in-app, and immediately provide information on the project they supported, with immediate create of certificates with the customers name on it. 

We highly recommend that you review the information about Nori and its team before applying to this position at https://nori.com/careers.

Learning a bit about Nori will help you to assess whether or not our mission aligns with your values. 

Who You’ll Work With

You will be the Methodology Analyst at Nori and part of the Supply and Methodology team reporting to the Head of Supply and Methodology. However, you will work closely with the Product and Demand teams, which are led by the head of product and the head of sales & customer development. 

All of these teams work a little bit differently, but they work hand in hand with each other to create an inventory of verified carbon removals that can be sold through our marketplace. 

The Supply & Methodology Team

The Supply team works with Nori Suppliers: anyone who can verifiably remove and store CO2 from the atmosphere. The Methodology team works on developing the requirements for how projects are enrolled (see current methodology). Both teams report to the Head of Supply and Methodology. As Nori’s current focus is on our Croplands Methodology, the Supply team is working with farmers as well as the partners and companies around them to enroll croplands into the Nori market. Additionally, Nori will be doing two things coming up: creating a repeatable framework for adding new methodologies, and adding those actual methodologies. This is where you will come in. 

The Product Team 

The Product Team is responsible for the Nori marketplace, supply-side enrollment app, marketing website, and any of the technical/software aspects of Nori’s work.  The Product team works with the other teams—Supply, Sales, and Communications—to support business development needs. 

The Demand Team

The Demand Team is responsible for driving carbon removal sales and developing Nori’s customer base. Whether responding to customer feedback or RFP’s, the demand team deals with all things customer facing and will play an important role in developing future methodologies.

Five Key Aspects of the Role

• Understanding of carbon removal. This is the key skill to this role: a person who understands or is willing to learn about the science of all types of carbon removal. Be able to articulate the risks and benefits associated with these various carbon removal methods in a cogent fashion that takes into account both the scientific and commercial viability of the method. 

• Curiosity. A desire to learn about many new things in a short period of time. This person must be a self-starter who can find opportunities to learn about the latest and greatest in carbon removal while also searching for the best academic research that supports these methods.

• Applying risk analysis. How risky is this carbon removal methodology? What are the drawbacks of moving forward with a methodology? What makes this methodology the best? These are just the beginning of the questions that need to be answered and analyzed from all sides while considering the balance between the scientific readiness and the commercial viability. 

• Practical statistical skills. To properly sell carbon removals, Nori must understand the likelihood that the carbon that the model says is being stored, is actually being stored. A good understanding of uncertainty ranges and the ability to analyze claims being made in both academic research and by proponents of a carbon removal methodology is a must. 

• Be open and seek cross-functional collaboration. While you will be a member of the Supply and Methodology team and working primarily within that framework, you will be expected to work with other internal and external groups. Nori is a two-sided marketplace with many stakeholders: external partners for carbon quantification (Soil Metrics), third party verifiers, farmers who supply data and carbon removal services to Nori’s marketplace, data managers who facilitate the import of farm management data, and buyers of the digital carbon removal certificates. And these are just the folks involved in the US Croplands methodology. You will need to work with a diverse group of stakeholders across a multitude of carbon removal solutions that range from the super high-tech to the things humans have done for thousands of years. 

You’ll Be Responsible For… 

• Work within the Supply and Methodology team on roadmap planning, dependency identification, and resource planning across various carbon removal methodologies and carbon quantification tools.
• Understand the scientific basis for various carbon removal methodologies including literature reviews of scientific papers assessing carbon removal strategies and research into the underlying carbon calculations, uncertainties, and risks associated with both nature-based and industrial carbon removal.
• Apply academic findings to various commercially available carbon removal tools to assess market readiness of these tools
• Review uncertainty and risk associated with carbon measurement techniques early development companies with carbon removal solutions
• Assist in writing methodologies that meet Nori’s standards including information on carbon measurement, uncertainty ranges, data transparency and supplier accessibility
• Communicate clearly and effectively to external stakeholders, management and teammates on plans, status, and critical issues

Must-haves 

• 3-7 years of experience in environmental sciences and/or environmental risk and statistical analysis (PhD preferred)
• Experience in analyzing scientific literature and applying it to “real-world” solutions 
• Understanding of carbon removal methodological development
• Demonstrated statistics, actuarial, and risk analysis skills 
• Excellent communication skills (written, verbal, and Zoom)
• Ability to understand and resolve complex business issues 
• Ability to set clear expectations 
• Values transparency

Nice-to-haves

• Deep experience with two-sided marketplaces
• Experience working in a startup environment 

Key outcomes and metrics

• Team and company progress is measured in monthly OKRs
• Development of post-pilot US Croplands Methodology addressing key questions around carbon measurement
• Creation of process to analyze scientific rigor of proposed carbon removal proposals
• Developing new Methodologies

You’ll be a good culture fit here if you can...

• Handle a steep learning curve
• Know or are interested in learning what it takes to build a company
• Work with abstract ideas and requirements to create something more concrete
• Develop processes with a focus on continuous improvement
• Ensure a good relationship with external and internal stakeholders 
• Know how to measure progress meaningfully
• Stay playful and light without taking things too seriously or personally
• Limit work in progress and stay focused on the current goal

Key challenges in this role

There is a lot of ambiguity in what we’re building, and you will be key in working with internal and external stakeholders to sort through all the concerns and uncertainties to make sure we’re delivering the most transparent and accurate methodologies to calculate carbon removal. You will also be dealing with strong opinions on the best types of methodologies and the best way of measuring carbon and providing a clear message to leadership on the risks and benefits, including but not limited to scientific and commercial, of any proposed methodology. You must be able to partner with all of these folks even when you disagree with them to ensure that Nori’s reputation with the scientific community is validated. What’s the payoff for all this hard/fun work? 

• You’re not just working at some mobile ads startup—you’re directly helping build products to reverse climate change.
• You get to work with world-renowned experts in carbon sequestration and marketplace economics.
• There is a steep learning curve here, and for people who get excited by that, there’s no better place to be.

Join us on our mission to reverse climate change

By joining Nori at this time, you’ll help to shape our culture and help us to grow the company we hope to become. You’ll be helping us to solve some of the biggest challenges when it comes to creating a marketplace for carbon removal, from teamwork to technical implementations. You’ll learn a lot about the environment and agriculture. 

 What’s in it for you

• Four weeks paid time off, increases to five weeks after your first year. Plus holidays. Taking time off is essential, and we want you to recharge in whatever ways you see fit.
• Full medical, dental, vision benefits covered for you and dependents. It’s a great plan with a very low deductible. With an insurance company called Premera that is beloved in the Seattle region.
• Stock options.
• NORI tokens, proportional to the stock options.

Additional requirements for this position

This position will be located in Seattle, WA in our Ballard office. We are an office-centric culture with flexibility around remote work and daily schedules.

How to apply to join our team as Methodology Analyst

On average, this form takes people between 30 min. to 60 min. to complete. How much time you invest is 100% up to you. However, please note that the more context and detail you provide, the more you'll get out of the exercise, and the easier it'll be for us to determine whether or not you'd be a fit for this role!

We strongly advise you to use your desktop computer (vs. your mobile device). Doing so will inspire you to produce a better writing sample.

 Once you’ve submitted your form, you can expect to hear back from our team in the coming weeks.

Thank you in advance for your time!