AST SpaceMobile, Inc.

Senior Data Scientist - Payload & SAT-RAN

AST SpaceMobile, Inc.$130K — $155K *
Telecommunications & Hardware
5 - 7 years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • Bachelor's or Master's degree in a relevant technical field or equivalent experience.
  • 5+ years in delivering data science/ML solutions in production.
  • Strong proficiency in Python and SQL.
  • Experience in defining and operating data models and analytics pipelines.
  • Strong statistical foundation with evaluation and backtesting experience.

Responsibilities

  • Own and define SAT-RAN data strategy and metrics across subsystems.
  • Design and maintain unified SAT-RAN subsystem data models.
  • Lead deployment of models into production with quality monitoring.
  • Develop performance analytics across multiple subsystems.
  • Build anomaly detection systems using advanced statistical methods.
  • Create quality scoring models integrating predictive signals and KPIs.
  • Develop scheduling models linking orbital constraints to service performance.

Benefits

  • Collaborative work environment with cross-functional teams.
  • Opportunities for professional growth and development.
  • Engagement with cutting-edge technology and methodologies.
  • Flexible work hours with occasional remote work options.
  • Supportive of teamwork and innovative thinking.
Full Job Description
Position Overview

The Senior Data Scientist - Payload & SAT-RAN defines, builds, and operationalizes SAT-RAN data models across Payload, Gateway (GW), and Cellular/RAN subsystems. This role focuses on creating robust telemetry-driven models and metrics that quantify system performance, detect and prevent failures and anomalies, and enable data-driven optimization of user experience, capacity, and duty cycle under various ground and in-orbit constraints. This person works closely with payload engineering, gateway/network engineering, RAN/system architects, and operations to translate complex, multi-domain data into actionable insights and production-grade analytics.

Key Responsibilities:
  • Own Payload/GW/SAT-RAN data strategy: define key subsystem metrics, data sources, and collection requirements spanning payload, gateway, transport, and RAN/service layers.
  • Design and maintain SAT-RAN subsystem data models (entities, relationships, identifiers, etc.) to unify telemetry across domains and support scalable analytics.
  • Lead data model definition and deployment into production systems, including instrumentation requirements, pipeline design, validation, versioning, and data quality monitoring.
  • Develop performance analytics for end-to-end Satellite-RAN performance projected across multiple subsystems, including attribution of impact across payload, GW, transport, core, and RAN layers.
  • Build failure/anomaly detection and prevention systems using multivariate time-series, correlation/causality-informed approaches, topology/context-aware features, and alert deduplication/triage scoring.
  • Create qualitative quality scoring models that combine predictive signals with measured KPIs/KQIs, including confidence/uncertainty measures.
  • Develop fleet service scheduling models linking orbital state/visibility, predicted SAT-RAN capacity and quality, interference, and spacecraft power/thermal constraints to achievable service performance and demand fulfillment.
  • Build decision-support data products: dashboards, health scores, early-warning indicators, incident enrichment, and executive-ready reporting for SAT-RAN performance.
  • Partner with engineering teams to define success metrics, run backtesting/regression evaluation, and operationalize models into workflows such as assurance, release validation, and optimization loops.
  • Establish best practices for reproducibility and MLOps, including model monitoring, drift detection, dataset/version governance, and documentation.

Qualifications

Education:

Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Statistics, Mathematics, Physics, or a related technical field, or equivalent experience.

Experience:
  • 5+ years of experience delivering data science/ML solutions in production, including monitoring, anomaly detection, forecasting, quality scoring, or optimization support.
  • Strong proficiency in Python (pandas, NumPy, scikit-learn, and time-series tooling) and strong SQL skills.
  • Demonstrated experience defining and operating data models and analytics pipelines, including schemas, identifiers, aggregation logic, data validation, and lineage.
  • Strong statistical foundations, including model evaluation, uncertainty, time-series behavior, bias/variance, and backtesting.
  • Ability to translate cross-domain system problems into measurable metrics and deployable analytics.

Preferred Qualifications:
  • Experience with multivariate anomaly detection at scale, including change-point detection, sequence models where justified, and graph/topology-aware features.
  • Telecom/systems experience, including LTE/5G KPIs/KQIs, OSS counters/alarms, QoE/QoS metrics, and RAN performance indicators.
  • Familiarity with scheduling/capacity modeling concepts, including resource allocation, interference-aware capacity, constraint modeling, and power/thermal-limited regimes.
  • MLOps experience, including deployment, monitoring, drift detection, and CI/CD for data and models.

Soft Skills:

Technology Stack:
  • Python, including pandas, NumPy, scikit-learn, and time-series analysis libraries.
  • SQL and relational/analytics data stores.
  • Multivariate time-series and anomaly/change-point detection frameworks.
  • Telemetry, OSS counters/alarms, and KPI/KQI data pipelines.
  • MLOps tooling for model monitoring, drift detection, versioning, and CI/CD.
  • Dashboarding and reporting platforms for health scores and executive-facing analytics.

Physical Requirements
  • Ability to lift up to 25 lbs.
  • Ability to use a computer for extended periods.
  • Ability to work in a standard office environment.
  • Ability to travel occasionally to support cross-team collaboration or reviews with engineering and operations teams as needed.

This job description may not be inclusive to the duties and responsibilities listed. Additional tasks may be assigned to the employee from time to time or the scope of the job may change as needed by business demands.

About AST SpaceMobile, Inc.

AST SpaceMobile, Inc. is a telecommunications company that is developing a space-based cellular broadband network. The company's network will provide mobile connectivity to remote and underserved areas around the world. AST SpaceMobile, Inc. was founded in 2017 and is headquartered in New York, New York.
Learn more about AST SpaceMobile, Inc.
Size
50 employees
Market Cap
$696.8 million
Industry
NASDAQ

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