Product Engineering Lead Heartbeat Australia (m/f/d)

1KOMMA5˚; Sydney; On-site; AUD 180,000 - 260,000; Full time

Job summary

1KOMMA5° is seeking a Product Engineering Lead Australia in Sydney to own and localize Heartbeat AI for Australian households. You’ll guide technical strategy, lead hands-on development, and align with our Germany teams to maximize value from the energy platform.

You will shape architecture, mentor engineers, and ensure reliability of the energy core across tariffs and market structures, while collaborating with local teams and global Product/Tech groups.

Qualifications

• 5+ years in software engineering at scale.
• Experience leading or mentoring engineers; line management a plus.
• Hands-on depth in distributed systems and cloud; API design experience.
• Experience with data-intensive, IoT or energy-related systems.
• Strong English communication; explain tech in business terms.
• Experience enabling AI-assisted workflows in engineering.
• Based in Sydney with overlap with German hours.

Responsibilities

• Provide technical direction for Heartbeat in Australia aligned with Germany teams.
• Set the technical bar for the team and tackle hard problems.
• Make the energy management system work for Australian tariffs and market structures.
• Translate business and product requirements into technical solutions.
• Be the link between Australian teams, our engineering teams in Germany and partners.
• Shape how the team evolves: hiring and growth of engineers.
• Take part in hiring and mentor the engineers who join you.
• Build with AI-assisted development and agentic workflows.

Skills

Tech leadership

Distributed systems

Cloud infrastructure

APIs & integrations

AI workflows

Mentoring engineers

English communication

Tools

Google Cloud Platform

GKE

Cloud Run

Terraform

Eclipse Hono

MQTT

Mender

PostgreSQL

BigQuery

SQLMesh

Looker

Datadog

OpenTelemetry

Cursor

GitHub Actions

Job description

1KOMMA5°

At 1KOMMA5°, we pursue a clear vision: Living on wind and sunlight forever for free. To make this a reality, we are building the energy system of the future with Heartbeat AI. Want to be part of it? We bring together regional craftsmanship and scalable software: We don't think of solar, batteries, heat pumps, and e-mobility as isolated components, but control them as an intelligent, integrated overall system in our virtual power plant. Directly connected to the electricity market – in real time, fully automated. This way, energy is used when it is available from renewables and particularly cost-effective. By 2030, our goal is to transition 1.5 million households to renewable energies. Over 3,000 people are working towards this every day, at more than 80 locations worldwide, from Finland to Australia. Want to take responsibility and build solutions that truly matter? help us shape the energy world of tomorrow. Learnmore about our Product & Tech team!

Your mission

As Product Engineering Lead Australia, you will work with our App and Energy Management System as a product for the Australian market and support it’s localization. You help shape the technical foundation of how Heartbeat AI works for Australian households. The energy core households depend on: solar, batteries, heat pumps, AC, and EV charging are controlled and optimized as one system, around the clock, and more value comes out of every kilowatt-hour. You will take Heartbeat AI to the next level in Australia technically together with our Heartbeat AI engineering teams in Germany. You bring Australian needs into how the ecosystem evolves, and into how it creates more value over time.

You will be one of the first engineering members of our Australian Product and Tech Team and our engineering lead on the ground. You provide technical leadership from day one, work hands‑on, and help shape how the team grows around you. You make sure Heartbeat works reliably in Australian households. You will work hand in hand with our Australian teams and with the Heartbeat AI product and engineering teams in Germany.

As Engineering Lead you will

• provide technical direction for Heartbeat in Australia in close alignment with the Heartbeat AI engineering teams, and be accountable for quality and delivery
• set the technical bar for the team and step into the hardest problems yourself, rather than only directing others
• make the energy management system work for Australian tariffs and market structures
• translate business and product requirements into technical solutions
• be the link between Australian teams, our engineering teams in Germany and our partners, and communicate technical decisions and their business impact clearly
• shape how the team evolves: how we work, who we hire and how we grow engineers
• take part in hiring and mentor the engineers who join you
• build with AI-assisted development and agentic workflows, and help drive our shift to agentic engineering, where agents execute safely while humans stay accountable

Technologies we typically work with:

• Cloud and infrastructure: Google Cloud Platform, GKE, Cloud Run, Vercel, Terraform
• Applications: TypeScript, NestJS, Next.js (web), Flutter (mobile)
• Messaging and IoT: Eclipse Hono, MQTT, Mender
• Data: PostgreSQL, BigQuery, SQLMesh, Looker
• Observability: Datadog, OpenTelemetry
• AI-assisted development with Cursor and agentic workflows. GitHub Actions. Linear, Notion
• Domain: energy market data and tariff-aware optimisation (learned on the job, no prior energy experience required)

Your profile

You have:

• at least 5 years of experience in software engineering in a fast‑paced, scalable environment
• experience leading or mentoring engineers or technical teams, formal line management is a plus
• hands‑on depth in distributed systems and cloud, and experience designing APIs and integrations
• experience with data-intensive, IoT or energy-related systems
• strong communication skills in English, written and spoken, including explaining technical choices in business terms
• experience enabling AI-assisted workflows in engineering
• the flexibility to cover regular overlap with German working hours, with potential meetings at unusual times
• You are based in Sydney

Bonus points for:

• experience in climate tech or the energy industry, ideally knowledge of the Australian electricity market and tariffs
• experience as an early engineering hire or building a team in a new region