Careers · Software Engineering
Director, Forward Deployed Engineering
Owns migration tooling and the customer data model, and is accountable for every system of record GridStrong replaces.
About the role
What this role is for.
A customer is on the Dashboard for good when it replaces a system of record and a core workstream at that customer: the SharePoint, the spreadsheets, the GRC tool, the inbox-to-tracker grind for operator notices. We migrated six legacy systems from a top-5 asset owner in sixty days and are doing the same for other top-10 owners. Once that happens, the customer's compliance and study work can run on the same record. Someone has to own that migration end to end and make each one faster than the last.
You will own the migration tooling and the customer data model inside Engineering. You are accountable for every system of record we replace, and you lead the Forward Deployed Engineers who execute migrations beside the Forward Deployed Managers.
Team: Software Engineering
Level: Director
Location: Remote, United States or Canada
Works with: The CTO, the VP, Applied AI, the Senior Forward Deployed Manager and Forward Deployed Managers, the Forward Deployed Engineers, Forward Deployed Operations, and the IT, compliance and asset management staff at customers.
What you will do
- Own the customer data model: plants, equipment and settings, documents, compliance evidence, tasks and workstreams across generation, transmission and load.
- Own the migration tooling: import pipelines for documents, settings, GRC records and operator correspondence, with validation that proves nothing was lost.
- Lead each migration with the assigned Forward Deployed Manager, from source inventory to cutover, and sign off that the system of record is replaced.
- Turn every migration into reusable automation so the next one takes days rather than months.
- Hire and lead the Forward Deployed Engineers and set their engineering standards.
- Decide, with the CTO and Applied AI, which migration logic lives in the production application and which runs as operator-driven import and export workflows.
- Report systems of record replaced and workstreams running in the Dashboard, per customer, as the team's primary measure.
What we are looking for
- Eight or more years in software engineering, with at least three leading data migration, integration or implementation engineering.
- Strong data modeling skills and experience with messy, document-heavy enterprise sources: SharePoint, file shares, GRC platforms, spreadsheets and email.
- Production experience in a modern web stack; we run Ruby on Rails and Python and you will read and review both.
- Customer-facing: you have run cutovers with a customer's IT and operations staff in the room.
- Experience hiring and leading engineers.
- Comfortable with the energy domain or able to learn it quickly: plants, relays, operator notices and NERC evidence are the data.
Nice to have
- Experience with regulated or compliance-heavy data: audit trails and evidence retention.
- Prior forward deployed or implementation engineering role.
- Experience with document extraction and classification pipelines.
The first 90 days
- You have inventoried every active and planned migration and own the delivery plan with the Senior Forward Deployed Manager.
- The customer data model is documented and the gaps found in the last migration are closed.
- One migration step that was manual is automated and used on a live customer.
- The first Forward Deployed Engineer requisition is open or filled.
Apply for this role
Send a note and whatever shows your work best to careers@gridstrong.ai. Tell us what you would want to build first. We read every note and reply within a week.