Federal Compliance Lead

WindBorne Systems is supercharging weather forecasts with a unique proprietary data source: a global constellation of next‑generation smart weather balloons targeting the most critical atmospheric data. We design, manufacture, and operate our own balloons, using the data they collect to generate otherwise unattainable weather intelligence.

Our mission is to eliminate weather uncertainty, helping humanity adapt to climate change by predicting hurricanes and accelerating renewable adoption. We are building a future in which the planet is instrumented by thousands of our microballoons, removing gaps in our understanding and giving people and businesses the information they need to make critical decisions.

The founding team of Stanford engineers has been recognized by Forbes under 30 and is backed by top‑tier investors, including Khosla Ventures and Footwork VC.

Position

As the Federal Compliance Lead, you will own our compliance function end‑to‑end and build the organization around you. You will be the first dedicated compliance hire, reporting to the COO and ensuring we don’t get bottlenecked as we scale into production government software sales.

Responsibilities

• Build our government compliance function from scratch.
• Lead the company through CMMC Level 2 certification, FedRAMP, IL‑5, and IL‑6.
• Translate complex federal regulatory frameworks (FedRAMP, DoD CC SRG, CMMC, DFARS 7012) into practical decisions about technical architecture, documentation, and process.
• Ensure those decisions are implemented by coordinating work across engineering, operations, and business development teams.

Skills and Qualifications

• 3+ years of experience with compliance audits (FedRAMP, PCI, SOC2, HIPAA, etc.) and prior U.S. Government compliance and audit experience (FedRAMP, FISMA, NIST 800‑53, NIST 800‑171, U.S. Government ATOs, etc.) ideally at a defense contractor or defense tech start‑up.
• Experience defining CUI boundaries and scoping assessment environments.
• Experience writing or substantially contributing to a System Security Plan.
• Proficiency with GRC platforms (Drata, Vanta, eMASS, or similar) and security tooling for evidence collection and continuous monitoring.
• Experience implementing security controls and assessing compliance in distributed applications on cloud infrastructure (e.g., Amazon AWS, Microsoft Azure).
• Deep understanding of complex cloud infrastructure and security concepts, including transient technologies such as containers.
• Proficiency with security concepts (encryption, authentication, etc.) and tooling for continuous monitoring (Tenable Security Center, Burp, SIEMs, etc.).
• Strong project‑management skills, enabling balance and tracking of multiple projects to completion.
• Willing and able to obtain a U.S. security clearance.

Benefits

• 401(k)
• Dental insurance
• Health insurance
• Vision insurance
• Unlimited PTO
• Stock option plan
• Office food and beverages

Salary

• $130,000 – $170,000** We consider a range of backgrounds and experience levels for this position and adjust offers accordingly to remain competitive with market rates.

Location

1600 Bridge Pwky, Redwood City, CA. In‑person required.