What are the responsibilities and job description for the Senior Seismologist position at Fervo Energy?
Description
The Senior Seismologist will lead the design, implementation, and processing of critical borehole and surface seismic monitoring campaigns to support Fervo Energy’s Enhanced Geothermal operations. This role is central to executing Fervo’s induced seismicity monitoring and mitigation plans, leveraging extensive datasets from fiber optic sensing, seismometers, and dense nodal arrays. A key responsibility is the development of advanced workflows for real-time microseismic processing using fiber-optic Distributed Acoustic Sensing (DAS). This includes estimating event magnitudes, focal mechanisms, and stress drops from DAS data, and integrating these insights into building rupture models and assess seismicity risk. The Seismologist will also play a leadership role in securing and managing research grants as Principal Investigator, fostering collaboration with national laboratories and academic institutions. While Fervo already has systems in place for real-time earthquake cataloging, this role encourages innovation in catalog-building techniques, especially those leveraging DAS and geophone data. The ideal candidate will develop algorithms that enhance real-time seismic hazard assessment and inform operational response protocols. Open to candidates across experience levels who meet the qualifications, this position will be an integral part of a multidisciplinary team of geophysicists, fiber-optic specialists, reservoir engineers, and computational scientists. The Seismologist will report to the Manager of Data Acquisition and Advanced Analytics.
Requirements
Responsibilities
Fervo Energy is headquartered in Houston, TX with satellite offices in the Bay Area, CA, Golden, CO and Reno, NV. This position will be eligible for some hybrid work flexibility, but regular in-office presence at the Houston OR Golden, CO office will be required. Some travel is required for this position.
Compensation & Benefits
Fervo provides a comprehensive suite of benefits including medical, dental, vision, life, short-term and long-term disability, flexible paid time off, and paid parental leave. Additionally, Fervo offers an incentive stock options program, a bonus incentive program, and a 401(k) plan with an employer match.
Fervo Energy is providing the compensation range and general description of other compensation and benefits that the company in good faith believes it might pay and/or offer for this position based on the successful applicant’s education, experience, knowledge, skills, and abilities in addition to internal equity and geographic location. Expected Salary: $145,000 – $175,000 based on Colorado locality, pay in other locations may vary.
Fervo Energy reserves the right to ultimately pay more or less than the posted range and offer other compensation, depending on circumstances not related to an applicant’s sex or other status protected by local, state, or federal law.
About Fervo Energy
Fervo Energy provides 24/7 carbon-free energy through development of next-generation geothermal power. Fervo’s mission is to leverage innovation in geoscience to accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy. Geothermal has a major role to play in the future electric grid and Fervo’s key innovations bring a full suite of modern technology to make geothermal cost competitive. Fervo’s innovations include technologies such as advanced computational models, horizontal drilling, and distributed fiber optic sensing that have been developed with partners including Schlumberger, ARPA-E, and the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab.
Fervo has an industry-leading development pipeline with offtakers and partners including Google, East Bay Community Energy, Desert Community Energy, Clean Power Alliance, Clean Energy Alliance, CalChoice, and others. Fervo’s investors include leading investment firms Capricorn, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Galvanize, Marunouchi Investment Partners, DCVC, Congruent, 3x5 Partners, and CPP Investments, as well as best-in-class strategic investors Devon Energy, Mercuria, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Helmerich & Payne, BHP, and Liberty Energy.
Fervo’s culture is fast-paced, innovative, and collaborative. We believe in building things that last, constantly innovating, doing what we say we’re going to do, and stopping to smell the roses.
Fervo Energy is an Equal Opportunity Employer and does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, creed, gender, religion, marital status, registered domestic partner status, age, national origin, ancestry, physical or mental disability, medical condition, sex, genetic information, sexual orientation, military and veteran status or any other consideration made unlawful by federal, state, or local laws. It also prohibits unlawful discrimination based on the perception that anyone has any of those characteristics or is associated with a person who has or is perceived as having any of those characteristics.
The Senior Seismologist will lead the design, implementation, and processing of critical borehole and surface seismic monitoring campaigns to support Fervo Energy’s Enhanced Geothermal operations. This role is central to executing Fervo’s induced seismicity monitoring and mitigation plans, leveraging extensive datasets from fiber optic sensing, seismometers, and dense nodal arrays. A key responsibility is the development of advanced workflows for real-time microseismic processing using fiber-optic Distributed Acoustic Sensing (DAS). This includes estimating event magnitudes, focal mechanisms, and stress drops from DAS data, and integrating these insights into building rupture models and assess seismicity risk. The Seismologist will also play a leadership role in securing and managing research grants as Principal Investigator, fostering collaboration with national laboratories and academic institutions. While Fervo already has systems in place for real-time earthquake cataloging, this role encourages innovation in catalog-building techniques, especially those leveraging DAS and geophone data. The ideal candidate will develop algorithms that enhance real-time seismic hazard assessment and inform operational response protocols. Open to candidates across experience levels who meet the qualifications, this position will be an integral part of a multidisciplinary team of geophysicists, fiber-optic specialists, reservoir engineers, and computational scientists. The Seismologist will report to the Manager of Data Acquisition and Advanced Analytics.
Requirements
Responsibilities
- Process and interpret microseismic and fiber optic strain/strain rate data to inform geologic models and evaluate reservoir performance.
- Analyzing induced seismicity to assess seismic hazard, support risk mitigation strategies, and optimize stimulation and completion efficiency.
- Extract earthquake source parameters—including magnitude, focal mechanism, and stress drop—from DAS, geophones, and seismometers; develop and apply rupture models to characterize fault behavior.
- Design and implement algorithms for real-time seismic hazard assessment using physics-based modeling, statistical analysis, and machine learning approaches.
- Master’s or Ph.D. in Geophysics, Seismology, Applied mathematics or a related field.
- Strong proficiency in earthquake source analysis, including moment tensor inversion, stress drop estimation, and stress inversion. Experience with DAS-based earthquake source characterization is a plus but not required.
- Demonstrated ability to develop analytical and numerical models for interpreting strain and strain rate from fiber-optic DAS data during hydraulic stimulation and geothermal production.
- Experience integrating seismic observations with Thermo-Hydro-Mechanical-Chemical (THMC) models to evaluate seismic and aseismic slip processes.
- Proficiency in Python for seismic data processing, including scripting, tool development, and algorithm implementation; familiarity with Linux-based computing environments.
- Experience in High Performance Computing.
- Background in solving inverse problems related to seismological data.
- Experience in applying machine learning techniques to seismological problems.
Fervo Energy is headquartered in Houston, TX with satellite offices in the Bay Area, CA, Golden, CO and Reno, NV. This position will be eligible for some hybrid work flexibility, but regular in-office presence at the Houston OR Golden, CO office will be required. Some travel is required for this position.
Compensation & Benefits
Fervo provides a comprehensive suite of benefits including medical, dental, vision, life, short-term and long-term disability, flexible paid time off, and paid parental leave. Additionally, Fervo offers an incentive stock options program, a bonus incentive program, and a 401(k) plan with an employer match.
Fervo Energy is providing the compensation range and general description of other compensation and benefits that the company in good faith believes it might pay and/or offer for this position based on the successful applicant’s education, experience, knowledge, skills, and abilities in addition to internal equity and geographic location. Expected Salary: $145,000 – $175,000 based on Colorado locality, pay in other locations may vary.
Fervo Energy reserves the right to ultimately pay more or less than the posted range and offer other compensation, depending on circumstances not related to an applicant’s sex or other status protected by local, state, or federal law.
About Fervo Energy
Fervo Energy provides 24/7 carbon-free energy through development of next-generation geothermal power. Fervo’s mission is to leverage innovation in geoscience to accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy. Geothermal has a major role to play in the future electric grid and Fervo’s key innovations bring a full suite of modern technology to make geothermal cost competitive. Fervo’s innovations include technologies such as advanced computational models, horizontal drilling, and distributed fiber optic sensing that have been developed with partners including Schlumberger, ARPA-E, and the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab.
Fervo has an industry-leading development pipeline with offtakers and partners including Google, East Bay Community Energy, Desert Community Energy, Clean Power Alliance, Clean Energy Alliance, CalChoice, and others. Fervo’s investors include leading investment firms Capricorn, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Galvanize, Marunouchi Investment Partners, DCVC, Congruent, 3x5 Partners, and CPP Investments, as well as best-in-class strategic investors Devon Energy, Mercuria, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Helmerich & Payne, BHP, and Liberty Energy.
Fervo’s culture is fast-paced, innovative, and collaborative. We believe in building things that last, constantly innovating, doing what we say we’re going to do, and stopping to smell the roses.
Fervo Energy is an Equal Opportunity Employer and does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, creed, gender, religion, marital status, registered domestic partner status, age, national origin, ancestry, physical or mental disability, medical condition, sex, genetic information, sexual orientation, military and veteran status or any other consideration made unlawful by federal, state, or local laws. It also prohibits unlawful discrimination based on the perception that anyone has any of those characteristics or is associated with a person who has or is perceived as having any of those characteristics.
Salary : $145,000 - $175,000
