Data Engineering & Automation Intern

Job Description

Introducing Kestrix

Kestrix uses drone-based thermal imaging and AI to map and quantify how heat escapes from buildings, assess heat pump and solar readiness, and generate energy retrofit plans for homes at scale. Our data and patent-pending algorithmic analysis helps landlords, local authorities, and energy suppliers understand the optimal upgrade pathway for each home – enabling the effective allocation of scarce time, labour, and financial resources into housing decarbonisation and regeneration. 

To date, Kestrix have mapped more than 10,000 homes, serving 25+ enterprise customers across the UK, Germany, and the US. We have raised £3.5M in funding from leading PropTech and Climate VCs (Pi Labs, the Conduit EIS Fund, and Carbon13 among them) as well as government bodies such as InnovateUK and the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ).  We are an agile team of 12, meaning you will have real ownership and impact from day 1. 

So what are you waiting for?

To apply head here: Application form

I hope to see your application.

Best wishes

Matt

CTO & Co-founder, hiring manager

The role

Our machine learning is only as trustworthy as the data we validate it against. That validation data is called ground truth: verified, real-world information about how buildings are actually constructed and insulated, covering their walls, windows, and roofs.

A rich source of ground truth already exists in the documents produced during building surveys. Retrofit assessment reports give us construction and insulation detail across walls, windows, and roofs, while borescope reports tell us the cavity fill insulation status of a wall. These are dense, unstructured PDFs full of exactly the information we need. The problem is that this information is locked inside documents in formats that vary from one assessor to the next, and none of it is machine-readable.

Your mission is to unlock it. You will build the pipeline that turns these messy PDFs into clean, structured, queryable data inside our platform, and connect it to our existing image annotations so it can be used to validate our algorithms.

The end goal we are working towards: someone uploads any of these assessment or survey PDFs, and the relevant data is automatically extracted into structured, processable form, correctly, every time

Job Responsibilities

Build the core extraction pipeline, writing Python to parse retrofit assessment and borescope reports across varying layouts and terminology, using LLM APIs and document-extraction tooling to get accurate results faster.

Support the ground truth data collection campaign as needed.

Partner closely with the engineering team to get feedback on technical decisions and integrate your work into the wider platform.

Success Criteria

Success is achieved when someone uploads any assessment or survey PDF, and the relevant data is automatically, accurately extracted into a structured, processable format every time.

Your Qualifications/Experience

Critical requirements

This is an early-career role, so we expect you to be learning fast rather than arriving fully formed. What matters is aptitude, curiosity, and a genuine ability to code.

• A background in computer science or data science, or a genuine personal interest in coding. A degree is not essential. If you have built things in your own time and have personal projects or products to share, we would love to see them.

• Comfortable writing Python and SQL. You should be able to read, write, and debug real code, not just tweak snippets.

• Any exposure to data modelling, databases, or working with structured data (SQL, graph databases, or similar).

• Strong problem-solving instincts. You can take an open-ended, poorly-defined problem, break it down, and work your way to a solution.

• A structured, precise way of thinking. You care about getting things right and you notice when something does not add up.

• Comfortable working with messy, real-world data and turning it into something clean.

• Able to communicate clearly and work independently, while knowing when to ask for help.

• An interest in buildings, energy, or the climate problem we are working on.

Nice to haves

• Experience parsing documents or extracting text and tables from PDFs.

• Familiarity with any of Python's data tooling.

• Basic web development.

Benefits

• 25 days paid time off (Pro Rata), the week between Christmas Day and New Year (with flexibility to shift for those of non-Christian religious backgrounds), and a day off on your birthday.

• Hybrid working 2 days per week at our office at Geovation, Clerkenwell, London.

• Flexible working outside core working hours.

• Regular team socials & wellness perks.

Interview Process

The process will have 3 rounds, the outcome of each will be assessed by Kestrix who will notify you of the outcome by email:

Application form and CV submission here.

1: interview with hiring manager (30 mins).

2: Technical interview and case study (30 mins).