Physics Team Lead

About the role

As a Physics Team Lead on the Applied Science team, you will lead the development of core physics-based simulation capabilities across wildfire and future perils. This role will be a technical lead and people leader, scaling as the team grows. Physics-based simulation is a core pillar at Stand. You will help transform traditionally high-cost, bespoke engineering workflows into scalable, validated, production-ready systems that directly power real-world risk decisions and drive tangible business outcomes. You will lead the development and application of core physics-based risk analytics programs, ensuring simulations connect across scales, inform probabilistic risk models, and integrate with AI-driven acceleration techniques to drive real-world outcomes. This position is ideal for someone who thrives in fast-paced environments, creates structure from ambiguity, owns outcomes end to end, collaborates effectively across disciplines, and is energized by building from zero to one.

Responsibilities

• Lead complex, cross-functional technical programs (e.g., IPT-style initiatives), coordinating across data pipelines, backend orchestration, frontend visualization, subject matter experts, numerical simulation experts, and machine learning engineers.
• Act as the functional technical lead within the Applied Science group, coordinating work across scales and perils while establishing workflows, modeling standards, and validation practices.
• Own major features of the physics simulation roadmap, including solver development, model tuning, and validation.
• Prioritize modeling investments across wildfire and future perils based on feasibility, impact, and business needs.
• Partner with recruiting to continue building the team, onboarding early hires and laying the foundation for player-coach leadership as the team scales.
• Guide the development of probabilistic risk mechanisms from deterministic physics models using computationally efficient approaches (e.g., surrogate or reduced-order methods).
• Collaborate closely across Applied Science and the full company, including with ML engineers and product teams, and communicate modeling decisions and tradeoffs clearly to leadership and partners.

Requirements

• PhD or Master's degree in a relevant field, with 5+ years of hands-on experience leading and executing simulation-adjacent technical programs.
• Demonstrated ownership of large-scale technical systems, products, or simulation-driven initiatives from concept through execution, with direct reports.
• Strong attention to detail and succinct communication skills, with a demonstrated ability to set technical direction and prioritize modeling work, balancing research depth, delivery timelines, and business impact.
• Strong modeling intuition informing system design, engineering decisions, or product outcomes.
• Highly self-motivated, with a "run-through walls to get the problem solved" mindset, self-directed, proactive, and adaptable; comfortable operating in fast-paced, ambiguous environments where problems, interfaces, and priorities evolve over time.
• Prior experience as a people manager specifically in startup or high-growth environments.
• Experience applying physics-based simulation to natural hazards, climate, or risk modeling (e.g., wildfire, wind, flood).
• Experience working directly with business units or product teams on customer or client-facing technology.
• Proficiency with physics-based solvers, including running, modifying, and extending existing codebases, fluency in Fortran, C++, or similar languages for simulation, scripting, and tooling.
• Industry experience working with high-performance compute and parallel processing workflows.
• Experience designing and owning multiscale or multiphysics si

Additional Information

Why Join Stand: At Stand, you'll help build a new class of global property protection. We use advanced physics and AI to model catastrophic risk at the asset level, then automate underwriting and mitigation before loss occurs. Insurance is simply the current delivery mechanism. The real product is a scalable risk engine, our Stand World Model https://frontier.standinsurance.com/ . We stay when traditional insurers exit. We model what others approximate. And we build systems that change outcomes, not just prices. Leadership: Our leadership team includes former successful founders and CEOs from Metromile, PolicyGenius, WePay, and HotelTonight, bringing deep experience in building and scaling high-growth companies. Background: The property insurance industry is built to price loss after it happens. It relies on coarse proxies, backward-looking data, and manual processes, then accepts damage as unavoidable. Stand takes a different approach. We simulate how real-world catastrophes affect individual properties, translate that into actionable decisions, and automate the business around it. The result is a platform that can underwrite what others can't and operate with far less friction.

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