Drilling Engineer, Exploration & Resource Automation

Mariana Minerals is a software-first, vertically integrated minerals company on a mission to supply the critical minerals powering modern energy, AI, and defense technologies.

We’re reimagining how minerals are sourced, refined, and optimized by combining deep industrial expertise with software, automation, and data-driven decision-making. Join us as we build the future of responsible mineral sourcing and supply.

We are hiring a Drilling Engineer, Exploration & Resource Automation to help build and implement the automated drilling, sampling, QA/QC, and resource workflows inside MarianaOS. This role sits at the intersection of drilling, geology, resource estimation, field operations, and software product development.

You will work closely with Mariana Minerals' software team to translate real-world exploration and drilling workflows into scalable software tools, automated systems, and practical field-to-model solutions. The focus is not only to execute drilling programs, but to help automate how those programs are planned, tracked, sampled, analyzed, reconciled, and optimized across greenfield, brownfield, infill, resource definition, and new drilling campaigns.

The ideal candidate has a strong geology, drilling, resource modeling, and resource estimation background, plus a strong motivation to automate manual workflows and build better tools for technical teams. Experience with sediment-hosted copper, sandstone-hosted copper, red-bed copper, stratiform copper, or similar deposits is helpful, but not required. Experience creating products, internal tools, technical solutions, dashboards, workflows, or software-enabled processes is a meaningful asset.

You will work on Copper One, a real sedimentary copper project in southeast Utah, while helping build MarianaOS tools that can scale across drilling, exploration, sampling, QA/QC, resource modeling, and project development workflows.

MarianaOS Product and Workflow Development

• Work directly with the software team to design, test, and improve MarianaOS tools for drilling, exploration, sampling, QA/QC, assay review, and resource modeling.

• Translate field drilling workflows into product requirements, user stories, data models, automation logic, and practical software specifications.

• Help define how technical users should plan drill programs, capture field data, track sample movement, validate assays, and reconcile results inside MarianaOS.

• Build and refine workflows that reduce manual spreadsheet work, improve data quality, and make geological and drilling decisions faster and more auditable.

• Serve as the domain expert connecting geologists, drillers, resource modelers, field teams, and software engineers.

Drilling Automation and Program Optimization

• Help develop automated systems for drill planning, target prioritization, hole design, drill schedule tracking, contractor coordination, and field progress reporting.

• Support workflows for greenfield exploration, brownfield drilling, infill drilling, resource conversion, confirmation drilling, and follow-up drilling.

• Design repeatable logic for comparing planned versus actual drilling outcomes, including drilled meters, productivity, sample recovery, deviations, delays, costs, and geological results.

• Identify opportunities to automate recurring decisions and checks across drilling campaigns, including sample interval validation, QA/QC flags, assay status tracking, and field issue escalation.

• Partner with technical and software teams to turn field learnings into product improvements that can scale across future Mariana Minerals projects.

Sampling, QA/QC, and Field-to-Lab Workflows

• Help define and automate end-to-end sample workflows, including sample interval design, labeling, chain of custody, dispatch, lab status tracking, assay receipt, and QA/QC review.

• Develop requirements for automated QA/QC checks involving standards, blanks, duplicates, check assays, contamination risks, sample swaps, missing intervals, and out-of-sequence results.

• Review drilling and sampling processes in the field and convert those observations into better systems, forms, controls, dashboards, and alerts.

Geology, Assay Interpretation, and Resource Model True-Up

• Support automated comparison of drill results against geologic interpretations, resource assumptions, block model predictions, and mineralized domains.

• Help develop drillhole-to-block-model reconciliation workflows covering lithology, stratigraphy, mineralized intervals, grade, thickness, alteration, and spatial continuity.

• Define variance thresholds, validation logic, exception reports, and follow-up drilling recommendations.

• Use assay results, field observations, and model outputs to identify areas where the model is confirmed, contradicted, or needs geological true-up.

• Help create repeatable workflows that connect exploration drilling, resource estimation, mine planning, and project development decisions.

Cross-Functional Implementation and Adoption

• Act as a bridge between field users and software developers, ensuring tools are technically sound, usable, and grounded in real exploration and drilling workflows.

• Test new MarianaOS features with real project data, identify edge cases, document gaps, and provide actionable feedback to the software team.

• Develop templates, process maps, standard operating procedures, dashboards, and training materials for drilling and sampling workflows.

• Communicate clearly with geology, resource modeling, operations, product team, engineering, and leadership teams.

Copper One Field and Technical Support

• Support drilling, exploration, sampling, and resource definition workflows for the Copper One project, a sedimentary copper deposit in the Lisbon Valley district of southeast Utah.

• Spend time at site to understand actual field execution, contractor workflows, sample handling, geological controls, and operational constraints.

• Bachelor's degree in Geological Engineering, Mining Engineering, Geology, Earth Sciences, or a related technical discipline.

• 3+ years of experience in drilling, exploration, mine geology, resource definition, resource modeling, and technical field programs.

• Strong understanding of drilling workflows, sample collection, assay data, QA/QC procedures, geological interpretation, and resource estimation concepts.

• Ability to work with drillhole data, sample intervals, assay results, geologic sections, block models, and field operating data.

• Experience with greenfield exploration, brownfield drilling, infill drilling, resource conversion, grade control, or development-stage drilling campaigns.

• Experience with geological block models, resource models, drillhole databases, 3D geological modeling workflows, and resource classification concepts.

• Experience with tools such as Leapfrog, Vulcan, Datamine, Deswik, Surpac, Micromine, acQuire, MX Deposit, GIS platforms, or similar systems.

• Experience defining QA/QC rules, assay validation processes, reconciliation reports, drilling dashboards, or data governance workflows.

• Strong interest in automation, process optimization, and building better systems for technical mining and exploration workflows.

• Ability to communicate effectively with both technical geology/drilling teams and software/product teams.

• Comfort translating messy field workflows into clear requirements, process maps, rules, dashboards, checks, or software specifications.

• Willingness to be based within the vicinity of the Lisbon Valley / Monticello-Moab, Utah project area and spend meaningful time near the project.

   

At Mariana Minerals, you’ll be part of a mission-driven team reshaping the way critical minerals are sourced and supplied globally. You’ll have the autonomy to make big decisions, the tools to innovate, and a culture that values ownership, smart automation, and collaboration.

Extreme Ownership – We take full responsibility for outcomes, relentlessly driving toward solutions.

Engineer Out Requirements, then Automate – We simplify, optimize, and then automate for scale.

Share Your Legos – We collaborate openly, share knowledge, and empower each other to build bigger, better solutions.

Join us as we build the future of responsible mineral sourcing and supply.

Mariana is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, or any other protected status.