Software Engineer - Grid Services

Emerald AI

$130K — $180K *
Energy & Utilities
5 - 7 years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • 7+ years in software engineering with production systems in Python
  • Expertise in designing reliable, distributed software systems
  • Knowledge of cloud infrastructure (AWS, GCP, Azure) and CI/CD
  • Proficiency in building data pipelines with large datasets
  • Familiarity with SQL and data engineering practices
  • Experience in electric utilities or wholesale electricity markets
  • Strong communication and collaboration skills
  • Bachelor's, Master’s, or PhD in a relevant quantitative field

Responsibilities

  • Design and implement software integrations with energy market platforms
  • Develop algorithms for optimizing resource dispatch based on grid signals
  • Create models to forecast electricity demand and market conditions
  • Convert market rules into operational software for compliance
  • Establish data pipelines for processing real-time market data
  • Manage software services from inception to long-term operation

Benefits

  • Make an impact in sustainable data center scaling
  • Collaborate with a world-class team in a supportive environment
  • Opportunity to influence strategy and organizational design from the outset
  • Competitive pay with equity options for value sharing
  • Comprehensive healthcare benefits and 401(k) matching
  • Flexible work location and schedule, including WFH options
  • Backed by leading investors like Radical Ventures and NVIDIA
Full Job Description
About the Role

The Grid Services team builds the intelligence that connects Emerald Conductor to the electric grid.

As a Software Engineer on the Grid Services team, you'll develop the systems that enable data centers to participate in wholesale electricity markets and demand response programs. You'll build software that ingests grid and market signals, forecasts system behavior, determines available load flexibility, and executes reliable dispatch across utilities, ISOs/RTOs, and energy market operators.

This role combines distributed systems engineering with optimization, forecasting, and energy market expertise. Much of the challenge lies in translating complex market rules - including capacity accreditation, baseline methodologies, settlement, and performance requirements - into reliable production software. Small implementation mistakes can have significant operational and financial consequences.

As one of the early engineers on the team, you'll help define the architecture, own major technical decisions, and work closely with control systems, platform, and AI infrastructure teams to turn grid-side decisions into real-world data center actions.

Key Responsibilities
  • Design and build software integrations with ISOs/RTOs, utilities, aggregators, and demand response platforms.
  • Develop optimization and control algorithms that determine when and how data center resources including compute workloads, on-site generation, and storage are dispatched in response to grid signals
  • Build forecasting models for electricity demand, data center load, prices and grid conditions to support market participation and dispatch decisions.
  • Translate wholesale market and demand response program rules including capacity accreditation, baselines, measurement & verification (M&V), settlement, and compliance into operational software
  • Build reliable data pipelines that ingest, validate, and process real-time operational and market data.
  • Own software services from design through deployment, monitoring, and long-term operation.


Minimum requirements
  • 7+ years of software engineering experience building production systems in Python
  • Strong experience designing and operating reliable, distributed software systems where correctness and availability are critical
  • Experience with cloud infrastructure (AWS, GCP, or Azure), containerization (Docker/Kubernetes), and CI/CD pipelines
  • Experience building data pipelines and working with large-scale operational datasets
  • Familiarity with SQL and modern data engineering practices
  • Experience in electric utilities, ISOs/RTOs, wholesale electricity markets, demand response, or adjacent energy systems
  • Excellent communication and collaboration skills
  • Bachelor's, Master's, or PhD in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, or a related quantitative field


Preferred requirements
  • Experience with PJM, ERCOT, SPP and/or CAISO markets
  • Experience with optimization frameworks (OR-Tools, Gurobi, CPLEX, Pyomo, cvxpy)
  • Experience building, deploying and monitoring machine learning models for time-series prediction
  • Experience with industrial communication protocols common in the energy sector (DNP3, ICCP, IEEE 2030.5, OpenADR)
  • Experience integrating with SCADA or other industrial control systems
  • Familiarity with NERC/FERC reliability standards and market compliance
  • Experience building settlement, measurement & verification (M&V), or baseline calculation systems
  • Experience with Rust, C++, or other systems programming languages
  • Startup experience or a track record of thriving in highly ambiguous environments


What We Offer
  • Make an impact. Solve the AI power bottleneck and shape how data centers scale sustainably.
  • Join a world-class team of AI, cloud, software, and energy experts in a collaborative, low-ego environment.
  • Build from 01. Influence strategy, GTM, org design, and customer/investor engagement from day one.
  • Competitive pay + equity. Stock options let you share in the value you help create.
  • Comprehensive benefits, including medical, dental, vision, and 401(k) matching.
  • Flexible location. Work from D.C., Boston, or the Bay Area, with 2 WFH day/week.
  • Backed by top investors, including Radical Ventures and NVIDIA.


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