Director, Carbon Science

Company

Rubicon Carbon is a next-generation carbon solutions provider. Led by a world-class management team, Rubicon is an innovative platform that channels capital to unlock at-scale carbon project development, and delivers trusted, enterprise-grade solutions for carbon credit demand. Rubicon strives to deliver greater scale, confidence, and innovation across all facets of the carbon market and to meet the growing demand for end-to-end, high-integrity emissions reduction solutions. 

Position Summary
Rubicon is seeking an experienced carbon market science and technical leader to support the growth of its project, investment, and portfolio activities across Asia, and the surrounding region. Reporting to the Head of Asia & Head of Asset Management with a dual reporting line to its Chief Science Officer in the US, this role will provide technical leadership and expertise across carbon project screening, due diligence, project design, portfolio management, and market-facing technical positioning.

This role requires deep expertise across both nature-based and technology-based carbon pathways, with strong grounding in methodology understanding and application, project design and implementation, MRV and dMRV, registry requirements, technical risk assessment, and market integrity frameworks. The successful candidate will combine scientific rigor with practical delivery experience, strong commercial judgment, and the credibility to engage effectively with developers, registries, auditors, ratings agencies, investors, and customers. Frequent international travel is expected for this role. 

Role location is flexible, with a strong preference for candidates based in Singapore 

Key Responsibilities

• Provide technical leadership across carbon projects spanning avoidance, reduction, and removal pathways, including both nature-based and technology-based solutions.
• Assess project design, baseline setting, additionality, leakage, permanence, monitoring plans, quantification approaches, uncertainty treatment, and delivery risk.
• Advise on methodology selection, applicability, interpretation, implementation, and where relevant, opportunities for methodology refinement or development.
• Lead or support technical due diligence for investments, project partnerships, and offtake opportunities, including review of PDDs, monitoring reports, validation and verification findings, and key technical assumptions.
• Support Asset Management of portfolio projects by identifying technical underperformance drivers, implementation bottlenecks, issuance risks, and mitigation measures.
• Work closely with project developers and implementation partners to strengthen project quality, monitoring systems, and issuance readiness
• Maintain strong working knowledge of major carbon standards, registries, and relevant program rules, including Verra, Gold Standard, ACR, CAR, ART, Puro, and other relevant mechanisms
• Monitor and interpret evolving carbon market integrity frameworks, including ICVCM CCP, ratings agency frameworks and criteria, and broader market expectations on project quality
• Work with the Rubicon Science team SMEs on the use of dMRV, remote sensing, GIS, sensor-based data systems, and other technology-enabled monitoring approaches to improve transparency, efficiency, and quality control
• Assess field implementation realities and technical execution risks, including data quality, operational capability, land tenure, local stakeholder engagement, FPIC, and audit readiness
• Support evaluation of project suitability for different market pathways and buyer use cases, including voluntary market applications and relevant Article 6 or jurisdictional considerations where applicable
• Partner closely with Science, Investments, Sales, Trading, and Asset Management teams to translate technical complexity into actionable investment, portfolio, and commercial decisions
• Contribute technical input to customer and commercial discussions, including quality positioning, methodology choices, delivery expectations, and risk implications
• Build and maintain strong relationships across the carbon ecosystem, including developers, standards bodies, registries, validation and verification bodies, ratings agencies, and technical advisors

Qualifications and Experience

• Bachelor’s degree in a relevant field, with relevant PhD or master’s degree preferred, such as environmental science, forestry, ecology, engineering, climate science, geospatial science, soil science, chemistry, or related fields, or equivalent experience.
• At least 7 years of relevant experience with at least 3 years in carbon markets, climate project development, carbon science, MRV, methodology development, technical due diligence, or related fields
• Deep understanding of major carbon credit pathways across both nature and technology, and how methodologies are designed, applied, and implemented in practice
• Hands-on experience in carbon project design, development, implementation, monitoring, validation, and verification
• Strong familiarity with key standards, registries, and market mechanisms, including Verra, Gold Standard, ACR, CAR, ART, Puro, and related frameworks
• Strong command of high-integrity carbon market principles, including additionality, baseline setting, quantification, permanence, leakage, uncertainty, and double counting
• Familiarity with ratings agency frameworks, quality assessment approaches, and how external quality signals affect project risk, portfolio value, and customer suitability
• Practical understanding of dMRV developments, geospatial tools, remote sensing, field data systems, and technology-enabled monitoring approaches
• Experience identifying and managing technical, implementation, and issuance risks across different project types and geographies
• Strong understanding of stakeholder engagement, safeguards, local community considerations, and FPIC in project development and implementation
• Strong commercial awareness and ability to connect technical rigor with investment, portfolio management, contracting, and customer needs
• Established network across the carbon market ecosystem in Asia and ideally globally
• Ability to operate credibly across technical, commercial, and executive audiences
• Multilingual skills - specifically in Bahasa, Mandarin, or Hindi - are a significant plus.

Preferred Attributes

• Strong judgment, intellectual rigor, and a pragmatic approach to technical problem-solving
• Ability to operate effectively in a fast-moving, entrepreneurial environment
• Comfortable working across multiple pathways, geographies, and project stages
• Strong communication skills, including the ability to distill complex technical issues into clear recommendations for non-technical stakeholders