Software Engineer - Grid Services

Software Engineer - Grid Services LocationBay Area; Boston; Washington D.C.Employment TypeFull timeLocation TypeHybridDepartmentEngineeringAbout Emerald AIWe’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 RoleThe 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 ResponsibilitiesDesign 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 signalsBuild 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 softwareBuild 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 requirements7+ years of software engineering experience building production systems in PythonStrong experience designing and operating reliable, distributed software systems where correctness and availability are criticalExperience with cloud infrastructure (AWS, GCP, or Azure), containerization (Docker/Kubernetes), and CI/CD pipelinesExperience building data pipelines and working with large-scale operational datasetsFamiliarity with SQL and modern data engineering practicesExperience in electric utilities, ISOs/RTOs, wholesale electricity markets, demand response, or adjacent energy systemsExcellent communication and collaboration skillsBachelor's, Master's, or PhD in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, or a related quantitative fieldPreferred requirementsExperience with PJM, ERCOT, SPP and/or CAISO marketsExperience with optimization frameworks (OR-Tools, Gurobi, CPLEX, Pyomo, cvxpy)Experience building, deploying and monitoring machine learning models for time-series predictionExperience...