Data Center Energy Manager

Crux AI

Palo Alto (CA)

On-site

USD 180,000 - 340,000

Full time

9 days ago

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Benefits offered by this job

Health, dental, vision coverage

401(k) Plan with 4% company match

Life insurance and disability

Job summary

Crux AI, a U.S.-based AI infrastructure company, is seeking a senior Energy & Power Transactions lead to own energization across a multi-state data-center portfolio.

You will negotiate with utilities, ISOs/RTOs, and power providers, validate energization dates, and structure bridging-power strategies to keep deployments on track while optimizing energy cost and risk.

Qualifications

10+ years navigating commercial energy issues for large loads (100MW+) across US markets.
Experience contracting energy service agreements, PPAs, and interconnection deals.
Experience with behind-the-meter generation and bridging-power concepts.

Responsibilities

Own energization reality for each project: validate dates for commissioning and operations, structure bridging power when grid dates lag.
Negotiate with utilities, ISOs/RTOs, and energy suppliers across interconnection, tariffs, and PPAs.
Support site selection and third-party deal screening as power diligence lead.
Develop on-site generation options (gas gen, storage, etc.) where cost/pace beats the grid.
Manage energy cost across sites with forecasting, hedging, and monthly P&L reporting.
Represent Crux with regulators and policymakers on rate cases and energy matters.

Skills

Utility negotiations

Interconnection processes

Wholesale market structures

Data center energy strategy

Tools

Energy Tariff Analysis

Power Modeling Tools

Regulatory Filings

Job description

Built to set the gold standard for integrated AI infrastructure

Crux AI is a newly formed, U.S.-based integrated AI infrastructure company created to remove the physical and operational constraints on consequential AI ambitions. Crux brings together power, high-density data centers, TPU silicon, networking, orchestration software, and ongoing operations as one integrated system.

Crux is being capitalized to plan every layer together, develop each one to demanding standards, and operate the whole system with efficiency and reliability. That gives hyperscalers, frontier AI labs, sovereign customers, enterprises, and AI-native companies greater freedom to pursue the AI they are here to create.

WHAT YOU'LL DO

Power is the binding constraint on AI capacity, and you will own it for Crux — securing megawatts, making energization dates real, and managing energy cost and risk across the portfolio. You will negotiate with utilities, market operators, and power providers across interconnection, tariffs, and supply agreements, and you will pressure-test every power claim behind a site or third-party deal before we commit capital to it. The role spans development and operations: getting new load connected on the dates the business is selling, structuring bridging and behind-the-meter solutions when the grid date and the customer date do not match, and managing the energy P&L of sites in production.

In this role, you will:

Manage commercial relationships with utilities, ISOs/RTOs, and energy suppliers across a multi-state portfolio — interconnection and load studies, rate structures and tariff strategy, energy service agreements, and PPAs.
Own energization reality for every project: separately validate the date power supports commissioning and the date it supports operations, and when the first is later than the schedule needs, structure and price bridging power into the base plan — not the risk register.
Support site selection and third-party deal screening as the power diligence lead — verifying interconnection queue positions, capacity claims, study status, and utility commitments behind every site and powered-shell offer.
Develop behind-the-meter and on-site generation options (gas gen, fuel cells, storage, islanded/bridge configurations) where they beat the grid on speed or cost, and manage the developers and OEMs who deliver them.
Negotiate agreements that preserve flexibility — load ramp schedules, curtailment terms, capacity expansion rights — so power contracts scale with the fleet rather than constraining it.
Manage energy cost across operating sites: forecasting, hedging strategy with finance, demand/tariff optimization, and monthly energy P&L reporting by site.
Represent Crux with regulators, policymakers, and communities on rate cases and energy matters affecting our loads, in coordination with legal and external affairs.

SIGNALS OF SUCCESS

After 60 days in this role:

You will have the power position mapped for every active site and deal in the pipeline: interconnection status, energization dates (commissioning and operations, separately), contract status, and the top risks with owners and mitigation paths.

After 6 months:

You will have the first utility/supply agreements negotiated or renegotiated on Crux paper.
The bridging strategy is in place for any site with a grid-date gap.
The power diligence standard is embedded in the site selection and 3P screening process.

After 1 year:

You will have ensured every energization commitment made to the business has held or been re-forecast early with a remedy.
Portfolio energy cost is tracking at or under plan.
A credible multi-GW power pipeline is supporting the growth roadmap.

EXPERIENCES, ATTRIBUTES AND MINDSET THAT INDICATE A GOOD MATCH

Experiences

10+ years navigating commercial energy issues for large customer loads — utility negotiations, interconnection processes, transmission/distribution fundamentals, and wholesale market structures across multiple US markets (ERCOT, PJM, MISO, SPP, WECC).
Direct experience contracting large new loads: energy service agreements, PPAs, interconnection and facilities agreements, and rate/tariff negotiations — ideally for data centers or comparable industrial loads at 100MW+ scale.
Exposure to behind-the-meter or on-site generation development (gas, fuel cells, storage) and to bridging-power structuring on schedule-driven projects.

Attributes

Outcome driven and hands-on. You personally lead the negotiations, read the tariffs and study reports, and build the model — the person accountable for the megawatts has to be close enough to the detail to know which claims are real.
A skeptic’s eye for power claims. “Power secured” means an executed agreement with dates and remedies, not a queue position and a handshake — and you can tell the difference in one meeting with a utility.

Mindset

High tolerance for ambiguity. Markets, queues, and policy will move under you. You translate genuine unknowns into concrete near-term actions and honest ranges rather than manufacturing false certainty about a date the grid has not committed to.
Speed with discipline. The company sells time-to-compute; you find the fastest credible path to power and paper it so the speed survives scrutiny by lenders, partners, and customers.
AI-agentic first. Fluent with AI agents — or committed to becoming so quickly — and you embed them as first principles in how you and your team work, defaulting to agentic workflows before adding headcount or process.

Nice to have (preferred, not required)

Hyperscaler or neocloud energy team experience during a rapid load-growth ramp.
Regulatory experience — rate cases, special contracts, or large-load tariff proceedings.
Energy trading, hedging, or structured-products background.
Engineering fluency in substation, interconnection, and protection basics — enough to challenge a utility study on its merits.
Sustainability/clean-energy procurement experience (RECs, carbon accounting, 24/7 matching).

Salary Range Information

The annual salary range for this position has been estimated based on market data and other factors. However, a salary higher or lower than this range may be appropriate for a candidate whose qualifications differ meaningfully from those listed in the job description.

About Crux