Research Scientist (Staff / Sr Staff) - Power Markets

Equilibrium Energy; San Francisco (CA); Remote; USD 120,000 - 160,000; Full time

Job summary

Equilibrium Energy, a fast-growing climate tech startup in San Francisco, seeks a Staff / Sr Staff Research Scientist to enhance algorithmic decision-making in energy markets. The ideal candidate will leverage their expertise in optimization and power systems to develop innovative solutions, fostering a collaborative work environment while contributing to the clean energy transition.

Benefits

Competitive base salary

Comprehensive benefits (medical, dental, vision, 401k)

Equity grant opportunity

Unlimited vacation

Accelerated professional growth opportunities

Qualifications

• 4+ years experience in the electricity & energy domain.
• 3+ years experience with Python and/or Julia.
• Experience with optimization modeling packages and solvers.

Responsibilities

• Influence product and engineering roadmaps with research insights.
• Tackle scientific & operations research problems.
• Develop models to analyze electricity market behaviors.

Skills

Optimization techniques

Python

Data visualization

Education

Advanced degree in computer science, operations research, electrical engineering, or related quantitative discipline

Tools

Numpy

Scipy

Pandas

Job description

Equilibrium Energy is revolutionizing the clean energy transition by developing innovative grid-scale energy storage solutions. Our technology and market platform helps utilities, independent power producers, and commercial customers optimize their renewable energy assets, improve grid reliability, and accelerate decarbonization. As a fast-growing climate tech company, we're building infrastructure that will shape the future of energy markets and enable a sustainable energy economy.

Equilibrium Energy is a well-funded, Series B clean energy startup backed by some of the most prominent institutional investors in climate. New colleagues will share our vision that a next-generation energy company must be built from the ground up on deep industry expertise combined with an unwavering commitment to modern digital approaches. We're looking for collaborative, talented, passionate and resourceful folks to join our team and help us lay the foundation for our important mission and ambitious plan.

What we are looking for

Equilibrium was founded with a vision for building a company where innovation, collaboration, optimization, machine learning, and data science power all aspects of our algorithmic decision-making. We are looking for a staff / sr staff research scientist with deep power markets domain expertise to accelerate the design and delivery of the autonomous energy market participation, asset optimization, and valuation products that will drive the future success of our company.

As a key member of our sciences group, you will play an active role in a) cultivating our culture of experimentation, insights discovery, and incremental delivery, b) facilitating research into state of the art operations research & optimization techniques, c) helping to identify, recruit, train, and mentor members of our growing team of exceptional scientists, and d) partnering with our engineers, product managers, computational scientists, analysts, and commercial team to influence the near to medium term product roadmap.

What you will do

Use research insights to shape product direction : Influence product and engineering roadmaps through presentation of research insights, experimental results, and model performance metrics, in order to evolve organizational direction. Initiate and lead cross-functional engagements to surface, prioritize, formulate, and structure complex and ambiguous challenges where advanced novel scientific research can have outsized company impact.

Optimization algorithms formulation & research : Tackle complex scientific & operations research problems by researching published academic literature, surveying industry techniques & intuition, and executing hands-on experimental testing & modeling. Solve ambiguous energy domain-specific optimal bidding & risk management problems through novel and innovative quantitative solutions and architectures. Lead medium to long term research projects that advance the state-of-the-art in energy asset management and financial trading performance.

Energy market analytics : Develop models and tools to analyze the behavior of electricity markets, including power prices, ancillary services dispatch, grid network models, transmission outages & constraints, and optimal power flows.

The minimum qualifications you'll need

• Passion for clean energy and fighting climate change
• An advanced degree in computer science, operations research, electrical engineering, power systems, or related quantitative discipline
• 4+ years experience in the electricity & energy domain (e.g. power systems modeling, power flow, security constrained unit commitment, economic dispatch etc)
• 3+ years experience with python and / or julia, and the supporting science tool suite (e.g. numpy, scipy, pandas, JuMP, etc)
• Experience with optimization techniques (e.g. stochastic optimization, robust optimization)
• Experience with optimization modeling packages and solvers
• Experience communicating mathematical concepts, analytical results, and data-driven insights to both technical and non-technical audiences
• A collaboration-first mentality, with a willingness to teach as well as learn from others

Nice to have additional skills

• Demonstrated experience with developing and releasing operational optimization models in the electricity and energy domain
• Experience with various US energy markets, including PJM, ERCOT, SPP, MISO, NYISO, ISO-NE, and CAISO
• Experience with forecasting & time series problems
• Experience with database technologies and sql
• Experience with data visualization and dashboarding technologies (e.g. plot.ly Dash, Streamlit)
• Experience leading and mentoring a team of scientists
• Demonstrated track record of academic paper or social media publication

Not sure this is the right role for you?

We are a high growth company with accelerating hiring needs so there's a great chance we'll be able to create a custom role for you, now or in the future. All roles, titles and compensation packages are tailored to the applicant, so apply anyways and tell us in your cover letter about your dream role.

What we offer

Equilibrium is composed of deeply knowledgeable industry experts across all our functions, with decades of experience in energy-specific commercial structuring, power systems engineering, machine learning, computational research, operations research, distributed and compute-intensive infrastructure, and modern software & ML engineering. Our experience in the space means we've previously built versions of nearly every technical component of our platform. We are now designing them better, and combining them in a holistic and novel way, to achieve global scale and climate impact. We pride ourselves on our deeply empathetic & collaborative culture, honest and direct but respectful communication, and our balanced, flexible, and remote-first work environment.

Employee benefits include :

• Competitive base salary and a comprehensive medical, dental, vision, and 401k package
• Opportunity to own a significant piece of the company via a meaningful equity grant
• Unlimited vacation and flexible work schedule
• Ability to work remotely from anywhere in the United States, Canada & Europe, or join one of our regional hubs in Boston, SF Bay Area, or London
• Accelerated professional growth and development opportunities through direct collaboration and mentorship from leading industry expert colleagues across energy and tech

Equilibrium Energy is a diverse and inclusive, equal opportunity employer that does not discriminate on the basis of race, gender, nationality, sexual orientation, veteran status, disability, age, or other legally protected status.