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Job Opening: Director of Engineering

The Seasteading Institute (TSI) is a non-profit organization with the mission of furthering the establishment of permanent, autonomous ocean communities.  In opening a new frontier, we will improve the human condition worldwide by enabling innovation with new political and social systems. We were recently covered in Wired and The Sunday Times, and have so far raised $800,000 of funding, mainly from Peter Thiel, co-founder of PayPal and early investor in companies such as LinkedIn and Facebook. More information is available at http://www.seasteading.org.

TSI's Director of Engineering will provide vision and management for all of TSI's technology initiatives.  This includes research and analysis of seasteading technologies, assisting in and managing the design process, and overseeing construction of seasteading prototypes.  The Director of Engineering will also serve as TSI's primary representative on technical topics at conferences, with the press, and with the community.

The ideal candidate will have a combination of theoretical skills (such as a graduate degree in Naval Architecture or Ocean Engineering), and have demonstrated the ability to get their hands dirty and build physical prototypes, and also to manage teams of others to do the same.  They should be able to generate ideas for novel technologies and designs as well as being familiar with the current industry.  They should be comfortable working in small teams and be largely self-managing.  They should be passionate about our mission, and understand that as a non-profit which can't afford to pay oil industry salaries, part of their compensation is in the "coolness factor" and getting to work on an ambitious project to benefit humanity.

This is a paid, full-time role in Palo Alto, CA.  We offer a quality PPO health insurance plan in addition to other standard California state benefits.

Specific responsibilities include:

  • Providing a vision for how seasteading technology can best support the organizational mission and strategy
  • High-level research of key seasteading technologies (structure, comfort, power, etc.)
  • High-level direction and management of seastead design
  • Management of construction of seastead prototypes
  • Design and administration of technology-related contests
  • Running TSI's community-driven "DIY" seastead-building program 
  • Selection and management of any technical consultants
  • Recruiting and managing volunteers for TSI's technology team
  • Representing TSI to the press and at conferences

Interested candidates should send a resume and a brief statement describing their interest in the role to jobs@seasteading.org. Note that we offer a $1,000 referral bonus for this position, if you refer a candidate who later gets hired.