Principal Product Engineer

ArcTern Ventures; Washington (District of Columbia); On-site; USD 180,000 - 260,000; Full time

Job summary

ev.energy is seeking a Principal Product Engineer to own the product vision across AI-driven energy management for residential customers, EVs, home batteries, solar, and grid services.

You will shape the next growth phase, prototype rapidly with AI-native tools, and collaborate with Commercial, demand generation, and leadership to deliver compelling user experiences and measurable impact.

Qualifications

• Proven ability to take an AI-powered product from concept to MVP and production.
• Hands-on fluency with AI coding/prototyping tools (Claude, Cursor, or equivalents).
• Strong product instincts shaped by direct customer conversations.

Responsibilities

• Define and own the product vision across AI-driven energy management for end users.
• Turn ambiguous customer needs into rapid experiments and delightful experiences.
• Collaborate with Commercial, Demand Generation and CEO leadership to drive growth.
• Lead small, fast-moving squads and influence product direction without heavy hierarchies.
• Communicate clearly with engineers, executives, and customers.
• Balance customer value, technical feasibility, and speed to market.

Skills

AI-native builder

AI prototyping

Product instincts

User storytelling

Leadership

Communication

Bias for action

Humility

Tools

Claude

Cursor

Job description

About ev.energy

We are building the world's largest EV-centric virtual power plant (VPP). By connecting to vehicles, chargers, batteries, solar, and other distributed energy resources, we turn households into flexible grid assets that balance supply and demand, preventing blackouts and reducing reliance on fossil fuels.

We are scaling rapidly across North America and Europe. We are moving fast, we are AI-first, and we are looking for builders who want to power the grid of the future.

About the role

This is not a role for someone who waits for consensus before moving. It is a role for someone who shapes the vision, owns the outcomes, and raises the bar for everyone around them.

As Principal Product Engineer, you’ll own the product vision across one of our two critical growth areas:

• Users — helping residential customers optimise energy use across EVs, home batteries, solar generation, thermostats and grid load shifting (demand energy resources, multi-DER). You’re essentially supporting the end users of our products & services - delighting them through seamless experiences

Must-haves

• A proven AI-native builder — you have taken at least one AI-powered product from concept through MVP to production scale, and you come with a specific story, not just a resume claim
• Deep hands-on fluency with AI coding and prototyping tools (Claude, Cursor, or equivalent) as a genuine force multiplier in how you design, build, and ship products
• Strong product instincts grounded in direct customer conversations — you’ve shaped what you built by talking to the people who use it
• Experience leading small, fast-moving squads and influencing product direction without relying on hierarchy
• Exceptional communication skills — written, verbal, and demo — credible with engineers, executives, and customers alike
• High bias for action and comfort with ambiguity — you make good decisions with incomplete information and don’t wait for a perfect brief
• Low ego, high standards — you’ll kill your own work when the data says to, and you know the best ideas don’t always come from you

Nice to haves

• Experience in energy, utilities, cleantech, or adjacent domains — even if not deep
• Familiarity with home energy management devices
• Full-stack capability that lets you prototype independently without blocking on others
• A portfolio of things you’ve shipped — products, demos, or tools that prove how you work
• Experience or strong instincts around driving customer growth — particularly in how product design, onboarding, and enrollment experiences directly influence acquisition and retention

Product vision & strategy

• Define, evolve and own the product vision for our end users (customers) — shaping the products, experiences, and capabilities that will define our next stage of growth
• Partner closely with Commercial, Demand Generation, and CEO leadership to identify key market and technology trends
• Turn ambiguous customer pain points into compelling product concepts, rapid experiments, and experiences that delight
• Act as a trusted product and technology voice with customers, strategic partners, and stakeholders across the energy ecosystem
• Influence not only what we build, but why we build it — balancing customer value, commercial impact, technical feasibility, and speed to market

Build, iterate, demo, ship

• Turn concepts into working prototypes and demos in days, not months — good enough to test with real customers, not perfect enough to slow you down
• Partner with Commercial and Demand Generation to actively support customer growth — bringing new product concepts and working prototypes into sales conversations, pilot programmes, and client engagements
• Know when a rough AI-generated prototype is right for the moment and when production-grade engineering is needed — and apply that judgment
• Kill weak ideas early, scale promising ones aggressively, and maintain an uncompromising focus on product impact and customer value
• See hard product problems as puzzles to solve through customer insight and rapid experimentation — and bring the kind of energy and enthusiasm for building products people love that raises the bar for the entire team

Lead our AI-first way of working

• Operate with AI as a core part of your daily workflow — using tools such as Claude, Cursor, and emerging technologies to dramatically increase speed, quality, and leverage
• Set the standard for what modern AI-native product engineering looks like — combining rapid execution, technical fluency, and strong product intuition
• Share knowledge openly, challenge outdated ways of working, and raise the capability bar across the wider Technology organisation
• Push ideas forward without waiting for perfect information or full alignment — move, then adjust
• Help shape a culture that values experimentation, velocity, ownership, and commercial impact as much as technical excellence