Forward-Deployed Data Engineer

Gridsight

$100K — $130K *
Technical Services
5 - 7 years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • 5+ years experience in data engineering, analytics engineering, or technical consulting with customer engagement focus.
  • Advanced SQL skills for analyzing and wrangling complex datasets.
  • Proficient in Python for data transformation and validation.
  • Familiarity with dbt or other ELT/ETL frameworks and data pipelines.
  • Strong ability to manage customer-facing technical engagements and drive project deliveries.
  • Experience with cloud data infrastructure and modern development tools (Git, command-line environments).
  • Demonstrated success in building internal tools and improving processes with automation.

Responsibilities

  • Lead end-to-end data implementation engagements with utility customers, ensuring smooth integration.
  • Set up and configure data infrastructure in alignment with Gridsight's processes.
  • Map customer data to Gridsight's schemas while developing and validating transformation code.
  • Troubleshoot integration issues effectively, maintaining clear communication with customers during resolution.
  • Run and monitor necessary data pipelines for successful implementations.
  • Translate customer business questions into analytical tasks and deliver insights clearly to diverse audiences.
  • Identify patterns across customer work to guide product development and create repeatable processes.

Benefits

  • Opportunity to join a rapidly scaling venture-backed company from the ground floor.
  • Competitive salary, equity, and a comprehensive benefits package including wellness stipends and healthcare.
  • Engagement in a meaningful mission within an evolving industry.
  • Colleagues with a strong team culture focused on collaboration and solving complex challenges.
  • Annual co-working trips to Australia to enhance team bonding and culture.
  • Flexible, hybrid work environment with locations in San Francisco and Austin.
Full Job Description
Electricity grids are undergoing the most significant transformation in a century. The shift to renewables, the proliferation of rooftop solar, batteries, and EVs, and the increasing complexity of distribution networks are forcing utilities to operate their grids in fundamentally new ways. Gridsight is the analytics platform that makes this possible.

The Role

As a Forward Deployed Data Engineer at Gridsight, you will own the full arc of customer data engagement. You'll work directly with utility customers to understand their data environments, guide them through Gridsight's requirements, and lead the technical work of getting their data into the platform. Alongside implementation work, you'll deliver bespoke analytics that answer the questions customers can't yet answer themselves. You'll also contribute to the internal tooling that makes the next implementation faster and to the product work that accelerates time-to-value.

Gridsight runs an AI-forward stack that gives data engineers access to best-in-class tooling across data infrastructure, orchestration, and AI-assisted development, including: Databricks, dbt, Dagster, AWS, and enterprise Claude Code. Staying ahead of the curve is part of the job.

This is a rare role: equal parts customer partner, data engineer, and analyst. You'll be at the forefront of how Gridsight transforms the largest electric utilities in the world.

Key Responsibilities

Customer Implementations (~50%)

  • Lead end-to-end data implementation engagements with utility customers, from running workshops to scope data requirements through to live data flowing in the platform.
  • Set up and configure data infrastructure in line with Gridsight's current implementation process.
  • Map incoming customer data to Gridsight's schemas, develop code to transform customer data, and validate outputs against quality standards.
  • Debug integration issues with composure - triaging problems, communicating clearly with customers, and driving resolution.
  • Run and monitor the data pipelines required to deliver a successful implementation.

Analytics (~40%)

  • Work with customers to translate business questions into analytical tasks, and communicate findings clearly to both technical and non-technical audiences.
  • Deliver ad hoc and bespoke analysis for customers - answering operational questions, investigating anomalies, and surfacing insights that aren't yet available through the product.

Product Support (~10%)

  • Identify and communicate patterns across customer engagements to inform product direction.
  • Partner with Gridsight's data engineering team to productize implementation and transformation logic - turning bespoke code into repeatable, platform-ready tooling.
  • Contribute to internal documentation, playbooks, and tooling that improve the efficiency and consistency of future implementations.
  • Bring a tool-first mindset to the work: spot manual steps that can be automated, and take initiative to improve them.

Qualifications

  • 5+ years of professional experience in data engineering, analytics engineering, technical consulting, or a similar role that combines hands-on data work with direct customer or stakeholder engagement.
  • Advanced SQL skills and demonstrated ability to analyse, validate, and wrangle complex or messy datasets.
  • Proficiency in Python for data transformation, validation, and scripting.
  • Experience with dbt or similar ELT/ETL frameworks and working within data pipelines.
  • Ability to lead customer-facing technical engagements - managing expectations, communicating data requirements clearly, and driving deliveries to completion.
  • Experience with cloud data infrastructure and modern development practices (Git, command-line environments, collaborative codebases).
  • A track record of building internal tools, leveraging AI-assisted development tooling or automating manual work to improve process efficiency.

What We Offer

  • Rapidly scaling venture-backed company on the ground floor.
  • Highly competitive salary, equity, and benefits package including wellness and home-office stipends, healthcare, 401K, and parental leave.
  • A mission that matters in an industry going through its biggest transformation in a century.
  • A team worth working with - big hustle, low ego, great vibes - that's motivated by solving hard problems.
  • Free annual trips to Australia to co-work with your colleagues 'down under.'
  • Flexible, hybrid working environment with offices in San Francisco and Austin.

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