Turn climate data into investment insight. Research, develop and maintain robust climate analytics that help investment professionals assess how companies and portfolios are positioned for the transition to a low-carbon economy.
The opportunity
Robeco is looking for a Junior Climate Data Scientist to strengthen the connection between climate research, data science and investment practice. Robeco has been at the forefront of sustainable investing for more than 25 years, combining rigorous research with proprietary sustainability frameworks and active ownership. This long-standing expertise is embedded across its investment processes and continues to shape new approaches to climate, nature and sustainable development.
As a Junior Climate Data Scientist, you will sit within the Investments Data Science team and work in close collaboration with the SI Center of Expertise. This cross-disciplinary environment brings together quantitative researchers, portfolio managers, sustainability specialists, and data engineers, all focused on translating complex sustainability and climate data into actionable investment intelligence.
Position & Requirements
In this role, you will research, develop and maintain climate-investing insights. You will evaluate climate-related datasets, translate investment questions into quantitative analyses, and turn research prototypes into reliable tools, metrics and processes. The work involves complex data and evolving methodologies, so your outputs must be both analytically robust and practical for investors.
What you will do
- Research, develop, validate, and continuously improve Robeco's proprietary climate metrics and quantitative models, translating emerging climate-investment questions into differentiated intellectual property. This includes areas such as GHG emissions estimation, temperature alignment, transition risk scoring, and climate scenario analysis.
- Stay current with developments in climate science, sustainable investment research, regulation, and data innovation. Assess their relevance for Robeco's investment approach and use relevant findings to improve existing models or identify opportunities for new proprietary analytics.
- Identify, assess, and analyze climate and sustainability data from a wide range of sources, including carbon emission databases, corporate disclosures, climate target registries, and third-party ESG data providers.
- Evaluate data quality and address gaps through statistical estimation and imputation, ensuring that the data underlying investment decisions are reliable and well-documented.
- Write clean, reproducible Python code that can be maintained and extended by the broader team, with consistent attention to version control, testing, and documentation.
- Build tools, dashboards, and reports that communicate climate insights to portfolio managers, sustainability specialists, and other stakeholders, including colleagues without a data science background.
- Collaborate with portfolio management teams to analyze the impact of climate-related investment constraints and objectives on portfolio composition.
- Stay current with developments in climate science, sustainability regulation, and data innovation, and bring relevant insights back to the team.
- How can reported emissions, estimated emissions and company targets be combined to form a forward-looking view of decarbonisation?
- Which climate indicators provide useful information beyond a company's current carbon footprint?
- How do climate objectives or portfolio constraints affect investment exposures, risk and diversification?
- Where can automation or carefully governed AI reduce manual work without weakening analytical control?
- A master's degree in a quantitative field such as econometrics, mathematics, data science, computer science, engineering, physics, environmental science or a related discipline.
- Up to approximately three years of relevant professional experience. Strong graduates are particularly encouraged to apply.
- Strong analytical and programming skills in Python, including experience with the Python data stack such as pandas and NumPy.
- Experience working with structured data and SQL. Familiarity with PySpark, Databricks, Git, dashboards or web applications is an advantage.
- An interest in climate change, sustainable investing and financial markets. Prior climate-data or investment experience is helpful, but not essential.
- Care for data quality, methodological consistency, readable code and clear documentation.
- The ability to explain complex topics clearly and work effectively with both technical and non-technical colleagues.
- Curiosity, sound judgement, independence and a practical mindset. You are comfortable investigating an unfamiliar problem and asking for input when needed.
- Professional proficiency in written and spoken English.
How we think about AI in this role
AI literacy is part of effective data-science work, but it is not a substitute for subject knowledge or quantitative judgement. We are looking for someone who can select appropriate tools, formulate good questions, inspect generated code or text critically and verify results against reliable sources and tests. Experience with AI coding assistants, large language models or automated document analysis is welcome, but deep AI specialisation is not required.
For more information about this position, please contact Thijs Markwat via: t.markwat@robeco.nl.
Challenge:
Interesting in this position? In your cover letter, next to your motivation, please describe how you would take on the challenge explained below:
Corporate decarbonization is progressing more slowly than many investors anticipated, making it increasingly difficult to achieve portfolio decarbonization targets through real-world emissions reductions alone. How would you address this challenge and ensure that portfolio decarbonization remains both credible and impactful?
All applications will be treated with the utmost confidentiality. An assessment and integrity test may be used in the selection procedure.
Robeco Recruiting Team
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