---
title: 'Optical Payload Engineer at Tomorrow.io'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/optical-payload-engineer-tomorrow-io-golden-colorado-s7tnby34c6k7'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-09-09'
---

# Optical Payload Engineer at Tomorrow.io

- **Company:** Tomorrow.io
- **Location:** Golden Colorado, United States
- **Work type:** hybrid
- **Posted:** 2026-08-17
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-09
- **Apply:** https://boards.greenhouse.io/tomorrow/jobs/7702199003?gh_jid=7702199003

## Job description

Tomorrow.io is a leading weather intelligence and climate resilience platform helping organizations and governments make better decisions in a world of increasing weather volatility. By combining proprietary satellite technology, advanced AI forecasting models, and actionable analytics, Tomorrow.io delivers hyper-local weather insights that protect lives, strengthen operations, and build climate resilience globally.

Our space program is core to this mission. We are building and operating a weather observation constellation powered by next generation sensing technologies - transforming how atmospheric data is captured and used worldwide.

Tomorrow.io is seeking an Optical Payload Engineer to support the development, integration, and verification of electro-optical and infrared payloads for our weather observation constellation.

In this role, you will work at the intersection of optical engineering, imaging systems, spacecraft engineering, and atmospheric science. You will help translate mission and scientific objectives into instrument requirements, support payload performance analysis and verification, and contribute throughout integration, test, launch, and operations.

This is an ideal opportunity for an engineer with strong EO/IR and imaging fundamentals, practical experience with optical or electro-optical hardware, and the potential to take increasing ownership of complex space payloads and mission performance.

## What You’ll Do

- Support the development, integration, verification, and performance assessment of optical payload systems for weather observations.
- Translate mission and scientific data needs into payload requirements, interfaces, performance budgets, and verification plans in collaboration with senior engineers and atmospheric scientists.
- Support optical and imaging performance analyses, including radiometry, signal-to-noise ratio, image-quality budgets, detector performance, and MTF.
- Support the design, characterization, and validation of imaging sensors, optical payload subsystems, detectors, and electro-optical hardware.
- Evaluate payload performance drivers including aperture, focal length, detector pitch, stray light, thermal gradients, structural stability, jitter, and spacecraft interfaces.
- Support radiometric calibration and characterization activities to ensure payload performance and data quality meet mission objectives.
- Assess thermal, structural, and environmental effects on optical alignment and image quality.
- Demonstrate understanding of payload integration and test activities, including optical alignment, calibration, environmental testing, and test-data analysis.
- Work across payload, spacecraft, software, systems, and science teams to identify technical risks and resolve integration and performance issues.
- Establish and maintain clear technical requirements, interfaces, verification documentation, test results, and engineering analyses.
- Support payload activities throughout the lifecycle, from design and integration through launch, commissioning, and on-orbit operations.

## What You Bring

- 4-7+ years of hands-on engineering experience developing, integrating, testing, or operating EO/IR, imaging, optical payload, airborne sensing, or comparable electro-optical systems.
- Strong fundamentals in imaging system performance, including detector behavior, radiometry, signal-to-noise ratio, MTF, and image-quality concepts.
- Experience with one or more of the following: imaging sensors, detectors, optical assemblies, electro-optical hardware, focal plane systems, or optical payload subsystems.
- Working knowledge of optical performance characterization, calibration, and validation.
- Understanding of image-quality and noise contributors including detector noise, stray light, thermal effects, structural stability, and jitter.
- Familiarity with performing or reviewing SNR calculations and image-quality or performance budgets.
- Awareness of key imaging-system trade-offs involving aperture, focal length, detector pitch, sensitivity, performance, cost, and schedule.
- Experience supporting complex hardware/software integration and test activities.
- Exposure to optical alignment, radiometric calibration, environmental testing, or analysis of payload test data is highly valuable.
- Familiarity with environmental qualification concepts for spacecraft, aerospace, or similarly demanding engineered systems.
- Awareness of spacecraft-level considerations including thermal distortion, radiation effects on detectors and electronics, structural stability, vibration, jitter, and platform-generated disturbances.
- Ability to translate technical and mission-performance goals into clear requirements, interfaces, test approaches, and verification plans.
- Strong collaboration and communication skills, particularly when working across engineering and scientific disciplines.
- A proactive and accountable approach to engineering work, with the ability to organize technical activities, identify issues, and drive them toward resolution.
- Sound engineering judgment and a willingness to learn, take on increasing ownership, and grow your technical depth.

The Promise

Joining Tomorrow.io as an Optical Payload Engineer means:

- Make a measurable global impact — help develop space-based sensing technologies that improve weather forecasting and resilience worldwide.
- Work on real space hardware — contribute directly to optical payload development, integration, testing, launch, and on-orbit performance.
- Solve multidisciplinary engineering problems — work across optics, imaging systems, spacecraft engineering, atmospheric science, and mission operations.
- Grow your technical ownership — work alongside experienced engineers and scientists while taking increasing responsibility for payload performance and mission execution.
- Build with mission-driven teams — join an environment that values technical rigor, accountability, collaboration, and thoughtful execution.

If your experience is close but doesn’t fulfill all requirements, please apply. Tomorrow.io  is on a mission to build a special company. To achieve our goal, we are focused on hiring people with different backgrounds, perspectives, and experiences.

This position requires access to technology that is controlled under U.S. export control laws and regulations. Accordingly, this position is restricted to U.S. citizens, permanent residents and protected individuals unless and until any required licenses are obtained.

Tomorrow.io is proud to be an Equal Employment Opportunity and Affirmative Action employer. We do not discriminate based upon race, religion, color, national origin, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, gender expression, transgender status, sexual stereotypes, age, status as a protected veteran, status as an individual with a disability, or other applicable legally protected characteristics. Tomorrow.io participates in the E-Verify program in all US states, as required by law.

At tomorrow.io we have established a workplace culture that values fairness and equal opportunities and we believe it is crucial for fostering a positive and productive environment. Regularly reviewing and adjusting pay practices to align with legitimate drivers of pay, such as job level, geographic location, and performance, demonstrates a commitment to maintaining equity within the organization. This commitment to ongoing assessment and improvement is key to creating a workplace that is not only diverse and inclusive but also fair and just. The anticipated salary range for this role is $150-180k subject to local market and candidates skills and experience. Comprehensive health benefits, unlimited paid time off and other benefits included. Relocation assistance may be offered/available for certain roles.

Tomorrow.io is committed to providing reasonable accommodations for candidates with disabilities in our recruiting process. If you need any assistance or accommodations due to a disability, please let us know at jobs@tomorrow.io

___________________________________________________________________________________________

About Tomorrow.io:

Selected by TIME Magazine as one of the Top 100 Most Influential Companies in the World, Tomorrow.io is the world's leading Resilience Platform™. Combining next-generation space technology, advanced generative AI, and proprietary weather modeling, Tomorrow.io delivers unmatched forecasting and decision-making capabilities. Trusted by six of the top ten Fortune 500 companies, Tomorrow.io empowers organizations to proactively manage weather-related risks, opportunities, and enhance operational efficiency. From cutting-edge weather intelligence to real-time early warning systems, Tomorrow.io enables predictive, impact-based action for a safer, more resilient future. Learn more at Tomorrow.io.

Ethos:  Our ethos guides us in everything we do - The people of Tomorrow are here to make an impact, they show true grit, and always put people first.

How we roll: We believe that magic happens when people work together. The People of Tomorrow take ownership with a bias for action. We believe in transparency and directness, putting work before ego, and empathy. The People of Tomorrow have a can-do attitude, are resilient, and curious. They are growth oriented, value people striving to be experts, and love to have fun. Here, your success is achieved by your impact and deliveries and not by the hours you put in. We have flexible hours and unlimited vacation days policy. The People of Tomorrow show empathy, mutual respect and work as one diverse team. We grow fast and move faster but we always see people first. Each person has their own career growth path for we believe that the only way for the company to grow is if you grow.

## About Tomorrow.io

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: Tomorrow.io is a weather intelligence and climate resilience platform that combines proprietary satellite technology, AI-driven modeling, and predictive analytics to help organizations and governments proactively manage weather-related risks.
- **Entity Type**: Private (Series F — $210M raised as of May 2026)
- **Headquarters**: Boston, Massachusetts, USA (with offices in Tel Aviv, Israel, and Asia)
- **Founded**: 2016 (originally founded as Climacell)
- **Founders**: Shimon Elkabetz (CEO), Rei Goffer (CSO), Itai Zlotnik (CCO)

## Core Business
- **Primary industry/industries**: Weather Intelligence, Climate Resilience, Space Technology, AI/ML
- **Target customers**: B2B — Enterprise (Fortune 500 companies), Government (including NOAA, humanitarian missions), SMBs, and non-profits (via TomorrowNow.org)
- **Mission or purpose statement**: To create a more resilient world by empowering every person, organization, and country with actionable weather intelligence to thrive in the face of increasing climate volatility.

## Products & Services
- **Tomorrow.io Platform**: An AI-powered weather intelligence platform that fuses proprietary satellite data with global data sources to deliver sector-specific, actionable weather insights.
- **Weather API**: A free, LLM-ready API offering 60+ hyper-accurate weather layers, optimized for developers, AI agents, and natural language workflows. Includes real-time data, 14-day forecasts, and 20-year historical data.
- **DeepSky Constellation**: The world’s first AI-native, space-based weather-sensing constellation. Includes the first commercial weather radar from space (launched in 2023) and microwave sounder satellites.
- **Global AI FOCUS Model**: A machine learning infrastructure that delivers hyperlocal forecasts every 15 minutes by ingesting proprietary satellite data immediately.
- **TomorrowNow.org**: A non-profit partner making life-saving weather technology accessible to the world’s most vulnerable communities.

## Market Standing
- **Valuation/Market Cap**: Not publicly disclosed (latest round: Series F)
- **Key Metric**: Total Funding — $210M (Series F, increased from prior rounds, as of May 2026). Crossed $1M ARR in 2017 with first enterprise customer (JetBlue). Reached 250 enterprise and government customers by 2023.
- **Notable Investors/Partners**: Pitango, Harel Insurance (Series F co-leads). Customers include JetBlue, NOAA (data being tested in NWS AWIPS2 system).
- **Growth Signals**:
    - Named to TIME’s 100 Most Influential Companies (2024) and Forbes America’s Best Employers (2024)
    - Launched first commercial weather radar from space (2023)
    - Announced DeepSky, the world’s first AI-native space-based weather-sensing constellation (Jan 2026)
    - Expanded Series F to $210M (May 2026)
    - Satellite data entered NOAA’s AWIPS2 system for testing (Dec 2025)
    - Unveiled breakthrough severe weather model delivering kilometer-scale hail and lightning forecasts every 15 minutes (Oct 2025)

## Competitive Advantages
- **Proprietary space infrastructure**: The only company operating a commercial weather-sensing satellite constellation with radar and microwave sounder capabilities — providing cloud-penetrating data that traditional satellites and ground-based sensors cannot.
- **AI-first approach**: The Global AI FOCUS model and LLM-ready API represent a significant moat, enabling faster, hyperlocal forecasting at scale.
- **End-to-end vertical integration**: From satellite hardware and space operations to AI modeling and a user-facing platform, Tomorrow.io controls the entire stack.
- **Government and enterprise credibility**: Data being tested by NOAA and used by Fortune 500 companies provides strong validation and creates high switching costs.
- **Non-profit arm (TomorrowNow.org)**: Differentiates the brand and opens doors for humanitarian and government contracts.

## Strategic Focus
- **Constellation expansion**: Scaling the DeepSky satellite constellation to improve global coverage and data refresh rates.
- **AI model leadership**: Continuing to develop and deploy AI-native weather models (e.g., severe weather, FOCUS) to outpace legacy competitors.
- **Government sector growth**: Deepening partnerships with NOAA, NASA, and other national meteorological agencies.
- **Enterprise verticalization**: Building industry-specific solutions (aviation, energy, logistics, insurance, agriculture) to drive adoption.
- **Developer ecosystem**: Growing the free Weather API to become the standard for AI agents and weather-data consumers.

## Why Work Here
- **Culture highlights**: Values-driven culture centered on “Tomorrowness” — a mindset of thinking ahead, building boldly, and creating lasting impact. Core values include “Put People First,” “Make an Impact,” and “Show True Grit.” Emphasis on empathy, collaboration, and mutual respect. [tomorrow.io](https://www.tomorrow.io/careers/)
- **Remote/hybrid/office policy**: Flexible and hybrid work model. Offices in Boston and Tel Aviv, with a global, distributed team. [tomorrow.io](https://www.tomorrow.io/careers/)
- **Notable perks or engineering culture**:
    - Career development and training programs
    - Competitive health and wellness benefits
    - Generous vacation and leave policies
    - Regular team-building activities
    - Described as an “AI-first company” — engineers work at the intersection of space, AI, and climate tech
    - Radical transparency in hiring and operations
    - Named to Forbes America’s Best Employers (2024)
- **Open roles (as of mid-2026)**: Radar Engineer, Radar Scientist, AI-First DevOps Engineer, Staff Engineer (AI Builder), Senior Product Manager, Senior Solutions Architect (AI Solutions), People & Culture Business Partner, and more. [linkedin.com](https://www.linkedin.com/company/tomorrow-io)

## Sources
1. [tomorrow.io - Company Page](https://www.tomorrow.io/company/)
2. [tomorrow.io - Careers Page](https://www.tomorrow.io/careers/)
3. [tomorrow.io - Homepage](https://www.tomorrow.io/)
4. [LinkedIn - Tomorrow.io](https://www.linkedin.com/company/tomorrow-io)
5. [Built In Boston - Tomorrow.io Profile](https://www.builtinboston.com/company/tomorrowio)

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