---
title: 'Mission Operations Specialist at WindBorne Systems'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/mission-operations-specialist-windborne-systems-redwood-city-wf0nmvg629zv'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-09-21'
---

# Mission Operations Specialist at WindBorne Systems

- **Company:** WindBorne Systems
- **Location:** Redwood City, CA
- **Compensation:** $90k–$120k
- **Employment:** full-time
- **Work type:** onsite
- **Posted:** 2026-06-04
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-21
- **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/windborne-systems/b264a399-6c76-4388-8c98-8f1a35fe8bfd/application

> Owns end-to-end operational performance for a weather balloon constellation, coordinating with engineering, manufacturing, and customers. Manages edge cases, hardware rollouts, and global operations while adapting to shifting priorities and uncertainty.

## Job description

WindBorne Systems is supercharging weather forecasts with a unique proprietary data source: a global constellation of next-generation smart weather balloons targeting the most critical atmospheric data. We design, manufacture, and operate our own balloons, using the data they collect to generate otherwise unattainable weather intelligence. Our mission is to eliminate weather uncertainty, and in the process help humanity adapt to climate change, be that predicting hurricanes or speeding the adoption of renewables. We are building a future in which the planet is instrumented by thousands of our microballoons, eliminating gaps in our understanding of the planet and giving people and businesses the information they need to make critical decisions. The constellation team keeps our fleet flying and decides where it goes. Day to day, most of our work centers on the 1% of edge cases—the novel, the weird, the unpredictable—and serves two functions: it's a testing ground where edge cases surface bugs and validate new capabilities, and it's forward-deployed customer work where new features get demoed to and studied directly with customers in a hands-on way. It's an unusually wide surface area, and we're hiring someone to own a meaningful slice of it.

## Responsibilities

You'll own end-to-end operational performance across a rotating set of projects. In a givenmonth, you might:

- Run point on a military exercise — coordinating with engineering on tech readiness, manufacturing on hardware volume, and the Flight Control team on in-flight priorities ,then closing the loop with the customer on results
- Coordinate the operational rollout of new hardware, like ocean sensing buoys or radio ground stations
- Identify recurring bugs that affect performance constellation-wide
- Oversee our constellation’s response to a newly-appeared tropical storm – gathering the most interesting data while ensuring avoidance of other meteorological aircraft in the region, creating visualizations of our findings and communicating them to others
- Travel all over the world to carry out unusual operations – whether that’s slogging through a swamp in Alabama to recover a balloon, or setting up a temporary launch site on an island in rural Scotland

The work varies widely. Some weeks you're heads-down on documentation and tooling; other weeks you're trying to shepherd a cluster of twenty balloons across the Pacific. Most weeks are somewhere in between. ‍

## Skills and Qualifications

- When a procedure doesn't exist, you write it instead of waiting to be told it's your job. You like keeping a lot of balls in the air, and you’re ready to dive into anything that needs to be done.
- Genuine curiosity about how the world works. The job involves balloons, atmospheric science, radio, airspace, and defense tech — you don't need a background in any of these, but you should find them interesting enough to want to learn.
- You can sit across from a customer who's never encountered our tech, and help them understand and trust the operations you’ve carried out. The constellation team is the part of ops that is in itself a product, and it matters how we present ourselves and communicate with external collaborators.
- Comfort with uncertainty and shifting priorities. Procedures evolve, hardware changes, customers reprioritize. You're someone who finds this energizing rather than exhausting.

## Benefits

- 401(k)
- Dental insurance
- Health insurance
- Vision insurance
- Unlimited PTO
- Stock Option Plan
- Office food and beverages

‍ Salary

- $90K–$120K We are considering a range of backgrounds and experience levels for this position and adjust our offers accordingly to be competitive with market rates.

Location 1600 Bridge Parkway, Redwood Shores, CA. In person required.

## About WindBorne Systems

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: WindBorne Systems designs, builds, and operates the world’s largest constellation of autonomous, long‑duration weather balloons to capture unique in‑situ atmospheric data and deliver AI‑powered weather forecasts.
- **Entity Type**: Private (Series A – total funding $26M)
- **Headquarters**: Redwood City (Redwood Shores), California, United States
- **Founded**: 2019
- **Founders**: John Dean (CEO), Andrey Sushko (CPO), Kai Marshland (CTO)

## Core Business
- **Primary industry**: Aviation & Aerospace / Weather Intelligence
- **Target customers**: B2B, B2G – governments, utilities, airlines, renewable energy operators, and commercial enterprises with weather‑sensitive operations
- **Mission**: Build a planetary nervous system that covers 100% of the Earth, providing humanity with unprecedented environmental data and predictions to mitigate the impacts of weather uncertainty and climate change [windbornesystems.com/mission](https://windbornesystems.com/mission)

## Products & Services
- **Atlas Balloon Constellation**: A global fleet of long‑duration smart weather balloons that autonomously control altitude and provide ~50 vertical profiles per balloon, reaching remote oceans and polar regions [windbornesystems.com](https://www.windbornesystems.com/)
- **WeatherMesh**: A proprietary deep‑learning forecast model that fuses Atlas balloon data with other sources to produce forecasts that surpass the accuracy of both physics‑based and other AI models [windbornesystems.com](https://www.windbornesystems.com/)
- **Data‑as‑a‑Service (DaaS)**: Access to real‑time and historical atmospheric profiles from the balloon constellation, sold to governments and commercial partners
- **SaaS (API)**: AI‑based weather forecasts delivered via API, enabling customers to build actionable insights and automations

## Market Standing
- **Valuation / Market Cap**: Not publicly disclosed
- **Key Metric**: Total Funding – $26M across 6 rounds (including a $15M Series A, per news reports, and a $5M venture round led by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in December 2024) [linkedin.com/company/windborne](https://www.linkedin.com/company/windborne)
- **Notable Investors / Partners**: Pear VC, Khosla Ventures (seed), Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (venture round); partnerships with U.S. and international governments, private‑sector companies, and philanthropic organizations [windbornesystems.com](https://www.windbornesystems.com/)
- **Growth Signals**: 72 employees (+75.5% YoY); 38 active job postings (+1167% YoY); operations in 8 countries (US, Canada, Poland, Singapore, South Korea, Nigeria, Sweden, Kenya); hundreds of balloons launched per month with global scaling underway [linkedin.com/company/windborne](https://www.linkedin.com/company/windborne)

## Competitive Advantages
- **Proprietary data moat**: In‑situ atmospheric data from regions (oceans, poles) where other sensors are scarce – a key input for improving forecast accuracy.
- **Vertically integrated hardware & software**: In‑house design, manufacturing, and AI model development, all based in the USA.
- **First‑mover scale**: Only company operating a long‑duration, controlled‑altitude balloon constellation at this scale (Atlas).
- **Proven model performance**: WeatherMesh consistently outperforms traditional physics‑based and other AI forecast models, validated by government and commercial partners [windbornesystems.com](https://www.windbornesystems.com/)

## Strategic Focus
- Scale the Atlas constellation to permanently close atmospheric data gaps pole‑to‑pole.
- Expand federal and commercial sales (DaaS and SaaS), especially to utilities and the U.S. government.
- Advance WeatherMesh accuracy and develop new use cases in aviation routing, renewable energy grid optimization, and disaster response [windbornesystems.com/mission](https://www.windbornesystems.com/mission)

## Why Work Here
- **Planetary impact**: Every line of code and hardware design directly improves weather prediction, saves lives, and advances climate science.
- **Engineering culture**: “The Loonie Way” – high agency, obsessive problem‑solving, building from scratch, and iterating relentlessly. The team includes alumni from Project Loon, Stanford, and top aerospace/tech companies [windbornesystems.com/careers](https://windbornesystems.com/careers).
- **Hard problems**: Autonomous systems in extreme environments, real‑time data pipelines, and cutting‑edge AI.
- **Work environment**: Based in Redwood Shores, CA; technology is invented, designed, and manufactured in the US. Roles are likely on‑site (many engineering and operations positions specify location). Offices are collaborative and mission‑focused.
- **Growth**: 38 open roles across engineering, operations, business development, and more – a fast‑scaling startup with multi‑year runway [windbornesystems.com/open-roles](https://windbornesystems.com/open-roles).

## Sources
1. [windbornesystems.com](https://www.windbornesystems.com/)
2. [windbornesystems.com/careers](https://windbornesystems.com/careers)
3. [windbornesystems.com/mission](https://windbornesystems.com/mission)
4. [linkedin.com/company/windborne](https://www.linkedin.com/company/windborne)
5. [windbornesystems.com/open-roles](https://windbornesystems.com/open-roles)

## Other roles at WindBorne Systems

- [DC Government Affairs Strategist](https://feeny.ai/job/dc-government-affairs-strategist-windborne-systems-washington-dw1sbbjyd0q8) — Washington, DC
- [Launch Operator-Alabama](https://feeny.ai/job/launch-operator-alabama-windborne-systems-alabama-4gje76g48nar) — Alabama
- [Regional Field Manager (Central/South America)](https://feeny.ai/job/regional-field-manager-central-south-america-windborne-systems-central-south-hq6wwyygfhp5) — Central/south, United States
- [Flight Control Operator](https://feeny.ai/job/flight-control-operator-windborne-systems-remote-s7b04n2h1nw3)
- [Senior Manufacturing Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-manufacturing-engineer-windborne-systems-redwood-city-5397fj657a1r) — Redwood City, CA
- [Launch Contractor - Uruguay](https://feeny.ai/job/launch-contractor-uruguay-windborne-systems-artigas-ppsys5pjm21j) — Artigas, Uruguay
- [Electrical Engineer Intern](https://feeny.ai/job/electrical-engineer-intern-windborne-systems-redwood-city-yxanrb2he2m7) — Redwood City, CA
- [Lead Software Engineer - Gov Platforms](https://feeny.ai/job/lead-software-engineer-gov-platforms-windborne-systems-redwood-city-kqax9vq276dy) — Redwood City, CA
- [Meteorological Scientist - Data Assimilation and NWP](https://feeny.ai/job/meteorological-scientist-data-assimilation-and-nwp-windborne-systems-redwood-a2hymqfcy4tc) — Redwood City, CA
- [GTM Lead](https://feeny.ai/job/gtm-lead-windborne-systems-redwood-city-2v2gtspff59v) — Redwood City, CA