Forward-Deployed Engineer, Data Centers

SB Energy; Redwood City (CA); On-site; USD 140,000 - 165,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical, Dental & Vision (company-paid

401(k) with Company Match

Paid Time Off

Parental Leave

Life Insurance

Disability Insurance

Flexible Spending Accounts

Wellness Support

Hybrid Office Setup

Phone & Internet Reimbursement

Device Purchase Support

Job summary

SB Energy in the United States leads data center and energy infrastructure projects. We seek an engineer who can design and operate AI-enabled data and workflow systems across the full lifecycle, from siting to operations.

You will collaborate with engineering, procurement, finance, legal, cybersecurity, and digital platform teams to make data-driven decisions, manage governance, and ensure readiness of workflows and tools.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in a technical field required.
• 5-8+ years in data center or energy infrastructure or related fields.
• Experience translating workflows into software, data products, or dashboards.
• Familiarity with enterprise AI and data workflows is preferred.

Responsibilities

• Design, build, and operate AI-enabled data and workflow systems for the data center lifecycle.
• Maintain governance and production readiness for data center workflows.
• Translate recurring questions into reusable agent workflows, tools, dashboards, and APIs.
• Build source-linked project intelligence workflows using SharePoint and design packages.
• Create and maintain core project records, obligation registers, and risk logs.
• Connect site, grid, engineering, and commercial inputs into decision workflows.
• Support technoeconomic analysis and lifecycle economics.
• Collaborate with cybersecurity, legal, procurement, and operations teams.

Skills

Strong communication

Team collaboration

Problem solving

Data center lifecycle knowledge

Project workflows

Python

SQL

APIs

Cloud platforms

Education

Bachelor's degree in engineering or related

Master's degree preferred

Tools

SharePoint

Teams

Databricks

Azure

Job description

Do you want to work with high-caliber professionals in a dynamic and growing company? Are you entrepreneurial, hard-working, and collegial? Join us at SB Energy, a leading infrastructure company backed by SoftBank Group and Ares Infrastructure, pairing cutting-edge innovation with best-in-class execution. Our mission is to deliver reliable and secure data center and power infrastructure to strengthen America's future.

Founded in 2019, SB Energy is a SoftBank Group company headquartered in Redwood City, California. In 2026, SoftBank Group and OpenAI announced a $1 billion investment to support SB Energy as their leading development and execution partner for data center campuses, while Ares Infrastructure continues its long-standing support of the company's growth. SB Energy develops, builds, owns, and operates some of the largest and most technically advanced energy and data center infrastructure projects in the United States. Since its founding, the company has rapidly grown into a top-tier integrated platform with more than 3 gigawatts (GW) in operation and a multi-GW pipeline of energy and data center infrastructure nationwide.

SB Energy also leverages a strong culture of innovation to identify and integrate new technologies into its projects, including its AI-based digital platform, delivering energy infrastructure that is local, reliable, and matched to load. We are building the energy and infrastructure future—today.

Come join us in accelerating the energy and infrastructure transition!

Basic Function :

The Forward-Deployed Engineer, Data Centers, will build and operate the data, AI, and agentic workflow layers that support SB Energy data center development, engineering, delivery, operations readiness, and lifecycle improvement. This role translates project needs, engineering assumptions, source documents, schedules, constraints, risks, design inputs, operating requirements, and stakeholder questions into practical data products, tools, APIs, agent workflows, and governed decision-support systems.

This person will work across data center development, engineering, construction, procurement, finance, legal, operations, cybersecurity, SCADA, commercial, and Digital Platform teams to make project and engineering information easier to find, trust, connect, and act on. The role will create source-linked, permission-aware workflows that help teams answer project questions, track assumptions, compare scenarios, identify gaps, prepare review packets, monitor readiness, and preserve continuity from early development through construction, commissioning, operations, and future project lessons learned. The Forward-Deployed Engineer owns the data layer, workflow orchestration, agent-ready tools, engineering and project intelligence workflows, domain DevOps, evals, runbooks, and adoption loop required to make those decisions more reliable, traceable, and repeatable.

Responsibilities:

• Design, build, and operate AI-enabled data and workflow systems for the full data center lifecycle, from siting and development through engineering, construction readiness, commissioning, operations handoff, performance monitoring, and lessons learned.
• Maintain governance and production readiness for data center workflows, including stakeholder acceptance criteria, approval gates, data contracts, quality checks, eval datasets, MCP/API connector requirements, RBAC, audit logging, monitoring, runbooks, incident paths, adoption metrics, and controlled releases.
• Translate recurring data center project and engineering questions into reusable agent workflows, tools, APIs, prompts, dashboards, and data products that improve speed, decision quality, traceability, and cross-functional coordination.
• Build source-linked project intelligence workflows that retrieve, summarize, compare, and cite information from SharePoint, design packages, agreements, studies, schedules, trackers, vendor materials, and approved systems of record.
• Create and maintain core project and engineering records, including assumption trackers, obligation registers, decision logs, risk registers, readiness trackers, handoff packets, and source-linked documentation that connect evidence to accountable owners.
• Connect site, grid, engineering, and commercial inputs into practical decision workflows, including GIS constraints, transmission proximity, interconnection information, land and water constraints, weather and hazard data, tax incentives, vendor inputs, and SB Energy solar/BESS pipeline context.
• Support preliminary design and technoeconomic analysis workflows, including co-location options, AC-coupled versus DC-coupled tradeoffs, BESS sizing, reliability considerations, grid congestion, interconnection risk, carbon intensity, time-to-power probability, delivered cost, and lifecycle economics.
• Support operations and lifecycle performance workflows that connect AI workload forecasts, weather forecasts, PV/BESS performance models, grid import limits, load flexibility, thermal and electrical co‑optimization, asset condition, maintenance planning, and operating constraints.
• Partner with data center operations teams to translate operating procedures, alarms, maintenance events, capacity constraints, availability targets, and performance issues into source-linked workflows, dashboards, agent tools, and continuous‑improvement loops.

Qualifications/Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in Engineering, Computer Science, Data Science, Energy Systems, Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Industrial Engineering, Information Systems, Construction Management, or a related technical field required.
• Master's degree in Engineering, Data Systems, AI/ML, Energy Systems, Data Center Engineering, Construction Management, or a related field preferred.
• 5-8+ years of experience in data center engineering, energy infrastructure, forward‑deployed engineering, data engineering, software engineering, technical product development, project systems, digital project delivery, enterprise AI, or decision‑support systems.
• Experience translating complex engineering, infrastructure, or project workflows into practical software, data products, automations, dashboards, APIs, agent workflows, or decision‑support tools.
• Strong understanding of data center lifecycle workflows such as siting, power delivery, load forecasting, preliminary design, permitting, procurement, construction readiness, commissioning, operations, maintenance, handoff, or end‑of‑life planning.
• Strong understanding of project data workflows, including documents, schedules, assumptions, risks, obligations, milestones, approvals, handoffs, source‑of‑record controls, and cross‑functional ownership.
• Practical understanding of renewable energy, BESS, grid interconnection, SCADA, controls, thermal systems, electrical systems, reliability, load management, project controls, engineering design, or lifecycle cost modeling is preferred.
• Familiarity with LLM tools, ChatGPT Enterprise, agent workflows, MCP, retrieval, structured outputs, evals, tool calling, human‑in‑the‑loop approval patterns, and governed enterprise AI preferred.
• Experience with Python, SQL, APIs, data pipelines, cloud platforms, CI/CD, logging, monitoring, SharePoint, Teams, Outlook, Microsoft Graph, Monday.com, Databricks, Azure, or similar enterprise systems.
• Strong judgment around data permissions, cybersecurity, confidentiality, document provenance, source citation, system‑of‑record boundaries, engineering approval boundaries, production support, and operational risk.
• Ability to work directly with engineering, development, construction, procurement, operations, SCADA, cybersecurity, finance, legal, commercial, IT, Digital Platform, external implementation partners, and senior stakeholders.
• Strong communication skills and the ability to convert ambiguous needs into clear workflow designs, technical requirements, acceptance criteria, runbooks, review processes, and measurable success metrics.
• Experience with data center infrastructure, hyperscale customer requirements, power delivery, fiber connectivity, large‑load tariffs, thermal/electrical optimization, digital twins, or asset handoff is a plus.

Location

Houston, TX, San Francisco Bay Area, CA, San Diego, CA. The position may require up to 10% domestic travel.

Base Pay - $140000-$165000

The pay range mentioned above is a guideline. We tailor each offer based on your unique skills, experience, location, and market benchmarks—while ensuring internal parity across our teams. The compensation range provided reflects base pay. Total rewards may also include performance‑based bonuses, equity grants, and a market leading comprehensive health and wellness benefits package. Final details will be discussed during the later stages of the hiring process.

At SB Energy, we invest in our people and their families with benefits designed for flexibility, support, and peace of mind. Full‑time employees enjoy:

• 100% Company‑Paid Medical, Dental & Vision (for employees and dependents)
• 401(k) with Company Match
• Generous Paid Time Off + 11 Paid Holidays
• 12 Weeks Paid Parental Leave
• Life, AD&D & Long-Term Disability Coverage
• Flexible Spending Accounts (FSA) for Medical, Dependent Care, Transit & Parking (with company contributions)
• Mental, Physical & Social Wellness Support (with company contributions)
• Flexible Work Arrangements & Hybrid Office Setup Benefits
• Monthly Reimbursement for Phone, Internet & Data
• Optional Legal & Pet Insurance Plans
• Device Purchase Support

At SB Energy, the success of our projects is driven by a desire to see our projects benefit as many people as possible. We work to serve local communities through volunteering, fundraising, and much more. For example, we’re proud to support access and opportunity in engineering and clean energy through impactful mentorship programs and workforce training. When you join SB Energy, you can become a part of these efforts, collaborating with team members who share a vision of building a better future now!

SB Energy is built on a foundation of collaboration and inclusion. We are proud to be an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, creed, gender, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, marital status, pregnancy, sex, gender expression or identity, sexual orientation, citizenship, or any other legally protected class.

To learn more about us, visit www.sbenergy.com.