Biologist
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Job Location:
San Francisco, CA - USA
Monthly Salary:
$ 62000 - 87500
Posted on:
30+ days ago
Vacancies:
1 Vacancy
Job Summary
Were hiring an early-career Biologist to join our 10-person team on diverse projects across Northern and Central California. Our work spans infrastructure restoration open space development and renewable energy. The team combines junior and senior professionals with expertise in regulatory permitting; mitigation planning monitoring and reporting; special-status invertebrates; marine ecology; and botany wetlands and vegetation ecology.
In this role youll conduct field surveys for rare and invasive plants vegetation mapping and wetland/stream delineations and support office tasks such as report writing and preparing environmental permit applications. Fieldwork will take you through Californias varied ecosystemsfrom San Francisco Bays coastal salt marshes to Central Valley grasslands and vernal pools and the Sierra foothills. Were especially interested in candidates with some terrestrial invertebrate or pollinator ecology experience who want to learn protected pollinator surveys and habitat assessments.
Were looking for a friendly motivated and adaptable biologist eager to grow their consulting career alongside experienced professionals. Expect opportunities to explore scenic places encounter rare plants and insects and contribute to projects that support a sustainable future.
To qualify you should live within about 45 minutes of one of our Northern California offices (San Rafael Petaluma or Emeryville) for regular in-office collaboration and periodic field visits.
In this role you will:
- Conduct site visits independently or with WRA field leads to assess and map existing conditions. These site visits could occur in rural or urban locations.
- Evaluate project sites for jurisdictional streams wetlands and riparian areas as well as for special-status plant and invertebrate species habitat.
- Collaborate with other technical staff (e.g. biologists wetland delineators arborists GIS specialists) and sub-consultants (e.g. archaeologists historians) to complete technical studies (desktop or field-based) such as land cover mapping rare and invasive plant surveys and/or special-status invertebrate surveys.
- Collect and analyze monitoring data to evaluate the success of restoration and mitigation projects.
- Prepare environmental permit applications and technical documents to support inter-agency consultations.
- Prepare letters reports and/or memoranda with oversight and guidance from senior team members which may include detailing results of surveys or assessments.
- Assist senior staff in the preparation of habitat mitigation monitoring plans to address the restoration of stream wetland riparian and/or pollinator habitat.
- Occasionally take on assignments in support of other WRA project needs and to meet your billable hours target such as compliance monitoring during construction fish salvages and relocation and other field surveys that align with your interests and skills.
To be successful in this role you will need:
- Bachelors or Masters degree in Biology Ecology Botany Entomology or other Natural Resources-related subjects.
- 1-3 years of professionally relevant experience (preferably botany or other related terrestrial ecology subject).
- Direct experience in the identification and ecology of Central/Northern California plants.
- A baseline understanding of Geographic Positioning Systems (GPS) mapping.
- Proficiency in Microsoft Office Suite programs (Word Excel PowerPoint) and G-Suite (Gmail Docs Sheets Drive Calendar etc.).
- Strong writing and analytical skills (a writing sample may be required as part of the interview process).
- The ability to walk hike and work outside for long periods of time including traversing steep and physically challenging terrain in hot weather.
- The ability to conduct remote field work for up to five days at a time.
- A valid drivers license and reliable automobile transportation (while WRA has fleet vehicles that can be reserved for field use during busy field seasons a truck may not be available).
Additional skills and experiences that would be an asset to this role include:
- Completed 40-hour basic wetland delineation training (in U.S. Army Corps Methodology) and/or has field delineation experience.
- Experience conducting land cover and/or vegetation mapping.
- Experience conducting wetland delineations stream and riparian mapping and/or mapping of other aquatic resources.
- Experience conducting surveys for bees butterflies or other protected terrestrial invertebrates.
- Experience substantially assisting project managers or supervisors and a desire to be mentored in managing WRAs environmental work.
- The ability to work both independently and collaborate as part of a team.
- Attention to detail and willingness to proactively ask for guidance when needed.
- Eagerness to learn about new topics and improve skills based on feedback.
- Commitment to observing safety procedures on the job.
- Enthusiasm and appreciation for the most diverse floristic province (California) in the contiguous United States.
- An interest in learning more about Californias native terrestrial invertebrates including bees butterflies and other pollinators with a focus on protected species.
- Basic data analysis skills such as organizing data and running simple statistical tests in Excel R or other programs.
- Arborist certification.
- Special-status CA wildlife experience.
- Experience with CEQA and/or environmental permitting.
WRA has an established internal leveling system for our staff that maps to salary bands which have been informed by market data. Our leveling system is dependent on years of relevant industry experience education and the level of responsibility and autonomy at which youre expected to operate.
We have posted a salary range that corresponds to the appropriate level for this your first conversation with our recruiter we will discuss leveling and compensation with you to make sure that our expectations are aligned.
*The salary range for this position is $62000-$87500 which represents two job levels that WRA is open to considering for this role.
Who Are We
WRA is an employee-owned environmental consultancy. We are a tenacious team of planners engineers and scientists who aim to leave the lands we love better than we found them.
Our clients and partners hire us because were skilled at navigating through challenging projects involving wildlands parks community spaces and infrastructure. We bring over four decades of expertise long-standing relationships and connections to our local communities to ensure projects are pursued in responsible ways where both people and the environment thrive.
As an organization we believe independence and interdependence are not mutually exclusive. We invest in systems processes and employee programs to support our staffs collective engagement and success. At the same time we encourage our employees to operate with an ownership mindset taking responsibility for outcomes and being true to our commitments.
WRAs company vision is to cultivate a sustainable future where people and the environment thrive and that effort starts with our staff. We are committed to building a diverse equitable and inclusive work environment. Our team has developed flexible internal policies and practices and invests in programs that prioritize learning and sustainability. We aim to create conditions that allow employees to prioritize their families lead healthy and balanced lives and bring their authentic selves to work every day. We believe that by creating an exceptional workplace our employees will be able to do their best work and meaningfully contribute to the sustainability of the environment and the communities in which we live.
WRA is an equal opportunity employer and we are committed to creating a diverse environment. We recruit employ train compensate and promote regardless of race religion color national origin gender sexual orientation disability age veteran status and other protected status as required by applicable law.
Key Skills
- Laboratory Experience
- Transfection
- Bioinformatics
- DNA Isolation
- Genetics
- PCR
- R
- Biochemistry
- Next Generation Sequencing
- Cell Culture
- Molecular Biology
- Research Laboratory Experience
About Company
Environmental consultants making a net positive impact. A tenacious team of planners, engineers and scientists, leaving the lands we love better than we found them.
