Earlier this year, I spent seven weeks working at Isometric in London, as their most junior software engineer. This blog explains what I learned and built during my time there.
After working at a climate tech startup last summer I realised that my theory-heavy course at university has its limits. I knew that being on the frontlines of this industry was what I enjoyed most, so being at Isometric over the summer was the perfect opportunity to get more of this experience and gave me a clear view of what working at a fast paced carbon removal (CDR) startup is like.
Initial expectations
Starting out, I was nervous about four things. I had never lived in London before. I was getting up to speed on a new subject matter all at once. I thought that many of my colleagues would be time-poor, so I wasn’t sure how much support I was going to get. And lastly, I wondered whether I would get to work on something with impact or would I just be given a side project that would never be used by the company.
These worries were all put to bed quickly. In my first hour at Isometric, I was briefed on my high-impact project—I was to build the monitoring plans that are a key part of the Monitoring, Reporting and Verification (MRV) platform.
Despite not knowing what MRV meant, I was excited. This was not a project separate from the main codebase. Fortunately, Isometric’s Tech Team is organized and has great documentation. There were plenty of resources to get me up to speed and, equally importantly, everyone was generous with their time and expertise to fill my knowledge gaps.
On the first day, I speedily integrated into the Isometric team and the tech stack. On the second day, I did my first PR. By the second week, I had shipped the most lines of code that week (and everyone knows the best metric of productivity is lines of code!).
Best of all, my colleagues helped me get settled into the company and my new city with weekly trips for falafel lunches and monthly padel sessions that I now sorely miss.
My project in more detail
Isometric's digital Monitoring, Reporting, Verification (MRV) platform helps CDR suppliers rapidly verify carbon removal and issue credits. It brings speed and rigor to an otherwise long verification process.
Before the dMRV platform, many suppliers would submit data manually. My updates to monitoring plans created a way for suppliers to submit monitoring data—and for verifiers to verify this submitted data—in an intuitive, fast way.
The project involved creating a data model for monitoring requirements as well as their evidence and evidence batches. I iterated the model based on feedback from the Isometric team as well as discovery conversations with verifiers and suppliers. This let us better understand their needs so we could make the dMRV platform as useful as possible for them.
I created an API interface for suppliers to submit data and updates to the carbon accounting process that let verifiers and suppliers analyze monitoring data.
My project was interesting and challenging. I was trusted to make my own decisions and supported when I needed help. I’m excited to see how this work is expanded upon by the team in the future.
Highlights and learnings
There were a number of highlights to my time at Isometric. One memory that stands out comes from the Tech Team offsite at the end of my first week. It was equal parts discussion on team strategy and team-building pottery making. This was a great way to start my time at Isometric and it only got better from there. The whole experience was capped off with getting to present my project at the last All Hands meeting before I left.
The time I spent at Isometric was transformative. I learnt a huge amount about backend engineering and the CDR industry. I even dipped my toes into a bit of frontend work, which I had never done before. Working in an environment with so many smart peers who are excited by what we were building stands out as something I won’t forget.
For any software engineers reading this—if you are interested in joining a smart, hard-working team and want to help out on Isometric’s essential mission, you should join—they’re hiring!
George Pool was a software engineering intern at Isometric in 2024. He is joining the Isometric team full time in 2025.
