Technical Delivery Lead, Data Platform

Climate People; Boston (MA); Hybrid; USD 130,000 - 180,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health and dental insurance

401(k) matching

Flexible PTO

Flexible work hours

Job summary

Singularity Energy in Boston area is hiring a data engineer to own multi-million-dollar customer engagements end-to-end, from architecture conversations to data pipelines. You will co-create the framework for onboarding new utilities, driving data quality, and defining how data is ingested, mapped, and validated across complex IT environments.

You’ll work closely with sales, product, and engineering teams, handling data formats, security considerations, and integration challenges.

Qualifications

• Data engineering experience in Python, SQL, and AWS production workloads.
• Strong customer-facing communication to engage utility clients.
• Comfort with ambiguity and small, senior teams; self-starter mindset.

Responsibilities

• Join late-stage sales conversations with IT/security teams to scope data work.
• Lead architecture and data-mapping discussions across IT, security and integrations.
• Scope engagements and align with Product/Engineering on what to build.
• Build ingestion pipelines converting raw utility data for the platform.
• Own end-to-end data quality and diagnose production data issues.
• Triage requests and balance one-off fixes with longer-term builds.
• Provide light app work in React/TypeScript/Node.js when capacity allows.

Skills

Data engineering

Python

SQL

AWS

Customer-facing communication

Ambiguity tolerance

US work authorization

Tools

React

TypeScript

Node.js

Job description

Every utility clean energy program eventually hits the same walls: complexity the current system wasn't built to absorb, institutional knowledge that lives in one person, and an audit trail that doesn't exist when it's needed. Singularity is built for all three: a platform the program doesn't outgrow, methodology that lives in the system rather than in a person, and one auditable record that holds up when it matters.

Founded in 2018, Singularity Energy is the clean energy platform for utilities and grid operators: program management, compliance, and customer reporting on a single utility/grid operator-sourced data foundation. Customers include Southern Company, APS, Evergy, MISO, and SPP. Recent coverage in Canary Media, Southern Company's newsroom, and SPP's blog covers the work in production. Backed by Energy Impact Partners, Spero Ventures, and Third Sphere. Recognized by TIME, Harvard, EPRI, Greentown Labs, and the National Science Foundation.

We're a team of about 15, organized into Delivery, Application, and Data Platform pods. The team is deeply technical and domain experts - people who've spent years working on the hardest data problems in the energy sector.

The Opportunity

The platform is in production with some of the largest utilities and grid operators in the country. This role is how we scale it.

You will own technical delivery of multi-million dollar customer engagements end to end, from the first architecture conversation with a utility’s IT and security teams through the data pipelines that make their reporting real. You will help build the framework for getting new customers up and running. What we build gets defined by what you learn sitting with them, not handed to you as a spec. From day one, you'll be in customer conversations, and your work will show up directly in what we build next.

There's a real path to lead the delivery team as it grows. The bigger opportunity is getting in early on a hard, unsolved problem at a company that’s already in production with the largest utilities in the country.

What You'll Do

The role is a data engineering and customer delivery hybrid, not a pure software engineering seat, and not a traditional forward-deployed engineer role either. The center of gravity is data.

Early in an engagement (roughly the first 3 months with a new utility)

• Join late-stage sales conversations when a utility's IT or security team needs a technical counterpart before they'll agree to move forward. You're often the reason a deal gets scoped correctly before it's signed.
• Lead architecture and data-mapping conversations with a utility's IT, security, and integration teams, most of whom have never spoken to each other about this data before.
• Scope what the engagement actually requires before the build starts: flag data formats, edge cases, or customer‑specific configurations the platform doesn't yet handle, and align with Product and Engineering on what needs to be built.
• Build the architecture diagrams utility IT and security teams need to sign off on data sharing.
• Work out exactly which generation, load, and billing data the platform needs, and which internal team at the utility actually owns each piece (utilities routinely split this across three to six teams who don't talk to each other).

As the engagement matures (roughly months 3 to 6 and ongoing)

• Build and maintain the ingestion pipelines that turn raw utility data into what the platform needs, and debug them when they break in production.
• Own data quality end to end: when a customer's report looks wrong, you're the one figuring out whether it's a missing data feed, a filtering bug, or a gap in what the utility actually sent.
• Handle new data deliveries and format changes from utility partners as they show up, often with minimal advance notice.
• Pick up light application work in React, TypeScript, and Node.js when the app team doesn't have capacity for something small; this is genuinely light touch, not a bar you need to already clear.
• Build the integration specs, data dictionaries, and runbooks that make your work reproducible. The institutional knowledge problem you're solving for utilities shouldn't exist inside Singularity either.
• Serve as the primary technical relationship owner for a handful of utility accounts after go‑live: be the person they call when something looks wrong, get new team members up to speed on the platform, and handle the integration changes that come when their program evolves.
• Act as the first filter on customer requests: triage what gets handled as a one‑time fix, what goes to the app or data teams as a proper build, and work with Product to make that call consistently so engineering capacity goes where it matters.

Bring patterns from the field back to product and engineering: when three utilities hit the same data format problem, that's a platform decision, not three one‑off fixes.

You'll carry a handful of utility relationships independently, which means you're also the one on the call when a customer asks a hard question and there's no time to loop in engineering leadership first.

What We're Looking For:

Must-haves:

• Data engineering ability: Python, SQL, and hands‑on production experience in the AWS ecosystem, not just coursework.
• Customer‑facing communication strong enough that we'd put you in front of a utility client independently.
• Comfort with ambiguity and thin process. We're a ~15‑person company; a lot of the job is deciding what "done" looks like yourself.
• Motivation to work on the energy transition specifically - this comes up in how we interview, and we're listening for it.
• US work authorization (we're not able to sponsor H-1B visas).
• A track record of getting functional in an unfamiliar domain fast. Nobody comes in knowing utility data already, even people hired from other energy startups.

Nice‑to‑haves:

• Utility or broader energy sector experience (rare, and it shortens the ramp, but it’s genuinely not required).
• Experience in another regulated, data‑sensitive industry: fintech, healthcare or biotech, govtech, or a company selling into municipalities.

Probably not the right fit if:

• You're a strong software engineer without a real data background (this role doesn't fill that gap on our team).
• You need defined process and specs to do your best work.
• Your experience is entirely internal‑facing, with no customer or stakeholder exposure.

If you enjoy tackling consequential problems with a small, senior team - and want to help shape the software infrastructure behind clean energy procurement, carbon emissions measurement, and carbon accounting helping drive the energy transition - we'd love to hear from you.

Why Join Singularity Energy

Utility data is one of the most complex, underbuilt domains in software. The people who know it well are rare, and the problems are genuinely unsolved. This role gives you deep ownership early: for the right person, the path leads to running new customer implementations end to end, informing what gets built on the product roadmap, and building out the implementation team as the company scales. The work is consequential and the learning is compounding - this is the kind of domain expertise that follows you.

Location and Team Culture

Based in or commutable to the Boston area, with work in the Somerville office (Greentown Labs) Tuesday through Thursday (company lunch on Thursdays). We're flexible on distance for senior or exceptional candidates, especially those who bring utility or energy domain experience that shortens the ramp‑up this role requires.

Compensation

$130,000 to $180,000 base salary plus a 10% target annual bonus and 0.05%-0.2% equity depending on experience. We'd rather have a real conversation about an exceptional candidate than let this range be the reason we don't.

Benefits: Comprehensive health and dental coverage via Thatch, 401(k) matching, flexible PTO, and flexible work hours.