What it pays
Government survey numbers — not estimates, not ads.
Half of all Physical Scientists, All Other in the U.S. earn more than $122,570 a year — the middle 80% land between $67,000 and $195,190. About 22,300 people in the U.S. do this work. Figures are for the U.S. occupation group “Physical Scientists, All Other”. (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics survey, published 2025.) In India, Professionals earn about ₹38,298 a month on average — around ₹4.6 lakh a year (government PLFS survey via ILOSTAT, occupation-family figure).
$122,570typical pay / year
22,300people in this work
$195,190+top 10% earn
₹4.6 lakha year in India (family avg)
Think you get this job?Six quick questions on how it really works — with a hint and the reason behind every answer.
Test yourself →The work, task by task
These are the real jobs-to-be-done, not a wish list. Each task shows where we found it, and the prompt underneath is written for that exact task.
Learning5
Set up or maintain remote sensing data systems
+Install and verify the ingest pipeline for the new satellite feed, validate georeferencing and radiometric…
Set up or maintain remote sensing data systems
+Install and verify the ingest pipeline for the new satellite feed, validate georeferencing and radiometric correction on a test tile, document the processing steps and notify the remote sensing lead and data engineer when the feed is live.
The tools that do the workAmazon Elastic Compute Cloud EC2Apache Kafkajob descriptionsO*NET
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Organize and maintain geospatial data
+Inventory all satellite and aerial imagery, elevation models, control points and derived products,…
Organize and maintain geospatial data
+Inventory all satellite and aerial imagery, elevation models, control points and derived products, standardize filenames and projections, prune duplicates, update the central geodatabase and write a one‑page change log before Friday so the team can access current layers.
The tools that do the workAmazon DynamoDBjob descriptionsO*NET
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Train technicians in remote sensing technology
+Prepare a two‑hour hands‑on session for Monday to teach technicians how to assess imagery quality, set ground…
Train technicians in remote sensing technology
+Prepare a two‑hour hands‑on session for Monday to teach technicians how to assess imagery quality, set ground control, perform basic orthorectification and document processing steps, include a troubleshooting checklist and two sample datasets for practice.
The tools that do the workAtlassian JIRAjob descriptionsO*NET
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Compile and format image data for usefulness
+Ingest the latest flight strips and satellite scenes, apply sensor calibrations, mosaic and crop to the study…
Compile and format image data for usefulness
+Ingest the latest flight strips and satellite scenes, apply sensor calibrations, mosaic and crop to the study area, compute reflectance indices and export analysis‑ready tiles with consistent naming and metadata by Wednesday for the modeling team.
The tools that do the workAmazon Elastic Compute Cloud EC2job descriptionsO*NET
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Discuss project goals, equipment, or methodologies
+Hold a 45‑minute project meeting with Tom from operations and Sara in procurement to agree objectives, list…
Discuss project goals, equipment, or methodologies
+Hold a 45‑minute project meeting with Tom from operations and Sara in procurement to agree objectives, list required sensors and calibration approaches, decide on a delivery schedule and record action owners so we can finalize the methods section.
The tools that do the workAtlassian JIRAjob descriptionsO*NET
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Analysing1
Collect supporting climatic or field survey data
+Compile recent station climate logs, curate field transect notes and GPS tracks, align timestamps with…
Collect supporting climatic or field survey data
+Compile recent station climate logs, curate field transect notes and GPS tracks, align timestamps with imagery acquisition, flag gaps or anomalies and produce a one‑sheet summary of supporting data for the upcoming classification run by Thursday.
The tools that do the workApache HiveESCOjob descriptions
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The daily work14
Develop automated routines to correct for the presence of image distorting artifacts, such as ground vegetation.
+Build automated correction routines that detect and remove vegetation-caused distortions in multispectral and…
Develop automated routines to correct for the presence of image distorting artifacts, such as ground vegetation.
+Build automated correction routines that detect and remove vegetation-caused distortions in multispectral and LiDAR images, test them on last summer’s flight lines over Platte County, quantify residual error per band, and save the validated scripts.
The tools that do the workApache HadoopO*NET
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Participate in fieldwork.
+Join the survey team on Thursday at Lincoln airfield, collect ground control points with differential GPS,…
Participate in fieldwork.
+Join the survey team on Thursday at Lincoln airfield, collect ground control points with differential GPS, capture reference photos and canopy height samples, and log any anomalies for image calibration back at the lab.
The tools that do the workBashO*NET
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Develop new sensor systems or analytical techniques
+Design and prototype a new hyperspectral sensor calibration chain using radiometric models and geometric…
Develop new sensor systems or analytical techniques
+Design and prototype a new hyperspectral sensor calibration chain using radiometric models and geometric self-calibration, simulate performance on airborne geometry from last year, and produce a lab test plan and costed parts list.
The tools that do the workApache Kafkajob descriptions
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Solve problems in urban planning
+Produce a set of high-resolution land-use change indicators for the city zoning team, fuse recent aerial…
Solve problems in urban planning
+Produce a set of high-resolution land-use change indicators for the city zoning team, fuse recent aerial imagery with cadastral maps, flag likely informal developments, and deliver a short briefing with map tiles and uncertainty metrics.
The tools that do the workApache Hivejob descriptions
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Solve problems in homeland security
+Generate a persistent surveillance change-detection layer around critical infrastructure, integrate…
Solve problems in homeland security
+Generate a persistent surveillance change-detection layer around critical infrastructure, integrate multisensor time series to reduce false alarms, prioritize alerts by confidence, and hand the workflow and SOP to the security desk.
The tools that do the workAmazon Web Services AWSjob descriptions
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Collect airborne data
+Plan and execute the next airborne campaign: define flight lines covering the watershed, specify sensor…
Collect airborne data
+Plan and execute the next airborne campaign: define flight lines covering the watershed, specify sensor settings and overlap to meet photogrammetric accuracy, arrange aircraft and crew for June, and produce a data ingest checklist for the processing team.
The tools that do the workAmazon Elastic Compute Cloud EC2ESCO
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Study radar images
+Study the two recent C-band radar mosaics of the floodplain from June and July, co-register them to the 10m…
Study radar images
+Study the two recent C-band radar mosaics of the floodplain from June and July, co-register them to the 10m DEM, calculate pixel-wise coherence and displacement vectors, flag areas with >2m change, and export a georeferenced change map for the mapping team by Thursday.
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Possess visual literacy
+Review the radar backscatter thumbnails and the aerial photo reference set, annotate examples of layover,…
Possess visual literacy
+Review the radar backscatter thumbnails and the aerial photo reference set, annotate examples of layover, shadow and specular return, summarise the visual cues that distinguish inundation from wet soil, and deliver a one-page guidance note for imagery interpreters by next Tuesday.
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Determine geographical points
+Determine the latitude and longitude for the damaged bridge corners in Sector 7 using the survey imagery and…
Determine geographical points
+Determine the latitude and longitude for the damaged bridge corners in Sector 7 using the survey imagery and ground control points, report coordinates in WGS84 with estimated horizontal accuracy in meters, and flag points needing field verification.
The tools that do the workApache HadoopESCO
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Execute analytical mathematical calculations
+Run the error propagation and least-squares adjustments on the recent survey tie-lines to produce final…
Execute analytical mathematical calculations
+Run the error propagation and least-squares adjustments on the recent survey tie-lines to produce final geodetic station coordinates, include variance-covariance matrix and a one-page summary of residuals for the engineering team.
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Study aerial photos
+Inspect the summer aerial strips over Wetland A, annotate visible channel shifts, crop stress, and manmade…
Study aerial photos
+Inspect the summer aerial strips over Wetland A, annotate visible channel shifts, crop stress, and manmade clearings, timestamp each observation and attach the best three frames showing the anomaly for the ecologist.
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Keep task records
+Log today's work on the river bank mapping: images processed, coordinates derived, field notes from Emma,…
Keep task records
+Log today's work on the river bank mapping: images processed, coordinates derived, field notes from Emma, outstanding tasks and estimated completion dates, then send the consolidated record to project archive and Tim in operations.
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Collect data using GPS
+Collect GPS fixes along Transect B at 10m intervals, record satellite PDOP and epoch time, reconcile fixes…
Collect data using GPS
+Collect GPS fixes along Transect B at 10m intervals, record satellite PDOP and epoch time, reconcile fixes with the airborne control points and produce a brief QA report noting any multipath or signal dropouts.
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Remote sensing techniques
+Apply the multispectral classification workflow to this set of scenes, run atmospheric correction, compute…
Remote sensing techniques
+Apply the multispectral classification workflow to this set of scenes, run atmospheric correction, compute NDVI and supervised landcover map, then export a confidence map and a methods note for reviewers.
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Says who?
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The logs, files & records this job keeps
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Same family of work — each with its own tasks and prompts.
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Built on public evidence: O*NET®, ESCO, Wikipedia, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, ILOSTAT. All sources & licenses
Built on public evidence: O*NET®, ESCO, Wikipedia, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, ILOSTAT. All sources & licenses