Y Combinator Senior Software Engineer, Grid Communications
Summary
Build and scale a control system for Gridware’s distributed grid-monitoring devices, handling millions of daily events, low-latency telemetry pipelines, and cross-team data services.
About Gridware
Gridware is a San Francisco-based technology company dedicated to protecting and enhancing the electrical grid. We pioneered a groundbreaking new class of grid management called active grid response (AGR), focused on monitoring the electrical, physical, and environmental aspects of the grid that affect reliability and safety. Gridware’s advanced Active Grid Response platform uses high-precision sensors to detect potential issues early, enabling proactive maintenance and fault mitigation. This comprehensive approach helps improve safety, reduce outages, and ensure the grid operates efficiently. The company is backed by climate-tech and Silicon Valley investors. For more information, please visit .
Role Description
As a member of the Grid Communications and Platform team, you will develop a control system for our distributed fleet of devices. This system will enable performant communications with our devices, which includes the ingestion of millions of events per day, operations including sensor data retrievals and device configuration updates, and the work of other teams reliant on our device's data.
You will own, test, operate, and plan the future of our services end to end. Along the way, you’ll partner closely with other Software teams such as Data Engineering and Devops, as well as cross-functional teams such as Firmware, Operations, and Data Science. As an early member of the GCAP team, your technical and nontechnical decisions will influence the long term architecture and tradeoffs of our system.
Responsibilities
- Design, build, test, and operate software that is scaleable, observable, secure, and fault
tolerant. - Create low-latency, event-driven pipelines for high-volume device telemetry and command
processing, and make key architectural decisions from protocol design to infrastructure. - Own our simulated and hardware in the loop testing software in collaboration with the
Firmware team. - Collaborate with Data Science and Operations teams to ensure your designs account for a
variety of environmental, connectivity, and operating conditions. - Lead cross functional projects to optimize system performance end to end.
- Own observability, monitoring, and incident response capabilities to support reliable
production operations.
Required Skills
- 5+ years of hands-on experience developing distributed, event-driven systems on cloud-native platforms using Python or Go.
- Experience with Kafka, Kinesis, Redpanda, or Apache Pulsar.
- Experience with using observability, monitoring, and logging tools such as Grafana, Prometheus, Loki, or similar.
- Strong communication skills and the ability to navigate ambiguity.
Bonus Skills
- Production experience optimizing transport layer protocols (TCP/UDP/QUIC).
- Deep understanding of networking, DNS, TLS, and DTLS.
- Experience developing software for distributed physical, IoT, or sensing systems.
- Experience with Apollo Router / GraphQL federation gateways.
- Expertise with Kubernetes, GitOps workflows, and Infrastructure as Code.
- Experience in high-growth startup environments where you must wear many hats.
This describes the ideal candidate; many of us have picked up this expertise along the way. Even if you meet only part of this list, we encourage you to apply!
Gridware Technologies Inc. is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to any characteristic protected by applicable federal, state, or local law.
Benefits
Health, Dental & Vision (Gold and Platinum with some providers plans fully covered)
Paid parental leave
Alternating day off (every other Monday)
“Off the Grid”, a two week per year paid break for all employees.
Commuter allowance
Company-paid training
Skills
As published by lever
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