Software Engineer - Grid Services

About Emerald AI

We’re at a pivotal moment for AI and energy. Demand for compute is skyrocketing, but power constraints are becoming a critical bottleneck. Emerald AI sits at the intersection of these two worlds, enabling AI data centers to scale without overwhelming the grid.

Our Emerald Conductor software platform makes data centers flexible and responsive, allowing them to adjust power usage dynamically. This unlocks massive AI growth without major new infrastructure, while also strengthening the grid and supporting the expansion of renewable energy.

We’re a team of experts across AI, cloud, software, and energy—on a mission to scale AI sustainably. We’re backed by leading investors and partners including Radical Ventures and NVIDIA.

Learn more about our vision, team, and backers at https://www.emeraldai.co/.

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 0→1. 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.

We are an equal opportunity employer and value diversity at our company. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, disability, and any other protected ground of discrimination under applicable human rights legislation.

Emerald AI strives to respect the dignity and ‎independence of people with disabilities and is committed to giving them the same ‎‎opportunity to succeed as all other employees.

Inclusiveness is core to our culture at Emerald AI, and we strive to ensure you get the most from your interview experience. Emerald AI makes reasonable accommodations for applicants with disabilities. If a reasonable accommodation is needed to participate in the job application or interview process, please reach out to the Talent team.