Founding Forward Deployed Engineer

About the role

Gridsight is building the Grid Intelligence Platform: a real-time, AI-native system that combines utility data, physics-based modeling, and modern AI to help utilities connect customers faster, unlock existing capacity, improve network visibility, and manage distributed energy resources at scale. We recently raised our Series B to accelerate platform development and U.S. expansion.

We are looking for a Founding Forward Deployed Engineer to help establish how Gridsight’s power engineers and go-to-market team solve the hardest utility problems—and turn that work into durable product and company leverage. This is a hands-on, founding role: you will not inherit an existing playbook, but will define the function through real work, close collaboration with domain experts, and iterative delivery of tools that solve real problems.

What You’ll Own

• Discovery and requirements: embed with power engineers and the U.S. go-to-market team to map real workflows and constraints, and identify the highest-leverage problems for tooling to solve.
• Dogfooding and quality: be the first serious user of new FDE and AI tooling on live work; test correctness, reliability, and fit with the realities of critical infrastructure.
• Field–product iteration loop: turn direct evidence into clear requirements, priorities, and acceptance criteria; work tightly with Product and Engineering as tools are designed, built, and improved.
• Hands-on technical execution: investigate data, write Python and SQL, build prototypes and integrations, debug workflows, and step into high-priority customer work when required.
• Rollout and adoption: onboard the U.S. team, train and support users in real engagements, establish new operating cadence, measure adoption and outcomes, and intervene when the team slips back into lower-leverage ways of working.
• Standards and operating discipline: define how tools should be used, the quality bar for AI-assisted work, when human review is required, and how lessons and failure modes are captured.
• Compounding leverage: turn recurring field needs into reusable workflows, product capabilities, and playbooks so every engagement makes the next one faster and better.
• The founding FDE operating model: help leadership define engagement criteria, decision rights, handoffs, and measures of success based on evidence from the field—not assumptions imported from another company.

What We’re Looking For

• You are a product-minded software engineer who has built and shipped maintainable software inside a product-engineering organization and understand how strong product and engineering teams discover, prioritize, build, test, and operate software.
• You have meaningful power or utility context. Experience in power systems, utilities, grid technology, or adjacent critical infrastructure is strongly preferred; you can earn credibility with domain experts and understand why correctness matters.
• You are deeply hands-on. You are fluent in Python, SQL, APIs, data pipelines, cloud systems, and modern developer tooling, and you can investigate, prototype, debug, and ship without waiting for another team.
• You understand modern data and AI workflows. Experience with platforms such as Databricks and with AI-native developer and agentic tooling is valuable, alongside rigorous approaches to evaluation, security, and correctness.
• You are excellent at discovery. You observe how people actually work, ask the questions that reveal the root problem, and distinguish a one-off request from a need worth solving repeatedly.
• You have strong product judgment. You can translate technical user needs into useful tools and know when to build, iterate, simplify, or stop.
• You can make a new way of working stick. You have driven adoption of new tools or workflows with busy technical teams under live delivery pressure, using credibility and evidence while holding a clear line on agreed standards.
• You are credible in complex enterprise environments. You communicate clearly with hands-on engineers, utility leaders, and executives, and connect technical work to customer and commercial outcomes.
• You are comfortable leading without hierarchy. You have high agency, low ego, and sound judgment; you work as a peer, take ownership of difficult work, and create momentum across functional boundaries.
• You are built for the field. You are willing to travel regularly, spend meaningful time with customers and the U.S. team, and treat direct observation as primary engineering input.

Why join Gridsight

The grid is the backbone of the modern economy. Electricity demand is accelerating, and utilities need better ways to identify capacity, connect customers, and make informed grid investments. Gridsight has differentiated technology, meaningful customer outcomes, strong investor backing, and a large opportunity to grow in the United States—driving significant impact toward clean energy abundance.

As our Founding Forward Deployed Engineer, you will work directly with the founders and leaders across Product, Engineering, and go-to-market to create a uniquely Gridsight FDE model. You will shape how our experts use AI, how our tools are built and adopted, and how learning from the field compounds into the platform. This is an opportunity to combine software engineering, power systems, product judgment, and change leadership with broad ownership from day one.