Technical Solutions Associate

Granular is a fast-growing climate tech startup developing a platform to help the electricity system transition towards 24/7 clean energy. You can find out more about the 24/7 energy space in this article.

Our SaaS platform provides portfolio management solutions to electricity companies and suppliers, to help them solve the issue of hourly matching between green generation and consumption, at scale.

We are active across Europe and the US and have partnered with Europe's leading power exchange and grid operators, among others. Following a recent oversubscribed funding round, we are extremely well funded with a long runway.

We are dedicated to fostering diversity and nurturing talent. If you don't possess all the skills listed below but believe you have the qualities we're seeking, we encourage you to reach out. We value diverse perspectives and are committed to building an inclusive team.

What's the mission of this role?

This role is a hands-on professional for our developing "Technical Solutions" team (small team of 3), at the crossroads between Sales and Product teams, and in direct interaction with our clients.

At Granular Energy, the Technical Solutions team is in charge of supporting the business development activities with advising prospects and clients and ensuring the delivery and success of the best solution(s) to them, once onboarded.

In practice, this is a client-facing role that involves leveraging significant domain expertise to find the right solution for each customer. The role also requires navigating complex processes and systems (from front to back-office) and figuring out integration plans to ensure a smooth onboarding of our enterprise clients.

The role is strategically important to our activity, and interacts with all parts of our business including our commercial, product and technical activities. It is a great opportunity to make an impact and drive change in the energy industry, but also to learn from different departments at Granular and unlock growth opportunities in several of them!

Note: In other companies, this role could be called a Technical advisor, Sales engineer, Technical solutions engineer. Yet we are not looking for a software engineer! Rather a business expert, able to understand complex environments, and design elegant solutions.

Who we are looking for!

Responsibilities of this role

• Hands-on implementation of solutions and case studies with our clients:
  • digging into our clients' domain and activities. You need to understand the ins-and-outs of their workflows: their portfolio, their teams, their processes, and their systems.
  • design integrations with our SaaS portfolio management software that often require thinking outside the box - it's new software after all!
  • when necessary, create scripts to automate parts of the integration
  • act as the key partner of our customers, and own the project once the contract is signed:
    • That involves the ability to communicate clearly and continuously with various stakeholders and deliver impactful presentations.
    • That also means taking responsibility for the success of our clients' projects
• Analysing systems (ETRMs, billing systems / ERPs, CRM) and dissecting data representations in our clients' environments, with a high level of detail and rigour, to inform integration strategies
• Managing client and prospects onboarding and service, from communication and advisory to technical support
• Reporting on / synthesising activity, pain points, decisions and progress on the main ongoing projects to other key managers in the company
• Identifying new opportunities to solve pain points for our customers, either through upselling other parts of our platform, or through projects to develop new platform capabilities for our customers (working closely with our commercial and product teams)
• Contributing to product and other cross-functional projects when required

Some example activities:

Technical/analysis Work

• Figuring out business context from data; analysing and transforming client data (Excel spreadsheets, extracts of ERPs, ETRMs, accounting systems). Mapping activities and systems, and designing solutions that make our system work with our clients' systems and portfolio.
• Running all kind of analyses on the portfolios of our customers, to validate solutions and hold educated conversations on use case upsell
• Improvement of internal efficiency and speed of delivery, by implementing automations for our clients' needs
• Improvement of the scalability of internal tooling and team workflows

Client communication

• Translation of technical and product-related concepts into non-technical language and visualisations for clients

Customer discovery

• Asking questions to identify our clients' needs during the sales process and tailor demo case studies for them, as well as running workshops
• Identifying customer pain points and potential new opportunities for our product

Essential Experiences, Competencies & Knowledge

• Experience as a business analyst, consultant, auditor, or anything that involves practical experience in figuring out complex business processes from data and analysis
• STEM education
• Excellent (remote) communication skills, and the ability to interact with a wide variety of internal and external stakeholders
• Experience in the energy industry (or similar industries like commodity trading and banking)
• Strong analytical mindset and problem-solving skills, with acute attention to detail
• Strong knowledge of a scripting language (preferably Python - VBA or R knowledge a plus)
• Comfortable in a fast-paced environment, working under tight deadlines, while keeping a high level of quality in your work
• Excel mastery and advanced proficiency with office tools (Powerpoint)
• Fluent in English

Bonus points for

• Experience in startup and/or remote environments is a strong plus
• Knowledge of typical systems used in the energy industry (energy retail CRM, ETRM and other front-to-back solutions, accounting software) and typical functions and processes in a utility business (front-office teams and process, middle-office/risk, back-office)

What's in it for you!

• Transparent salaries based on seniority/location (see "compensation" section left)
• Remote first: WFH or your local co-working space
• Three all-hands gatherings each year: most recently in Rotterdam, Brussels, Paris
• 30 days holiday (plus public holidays)
• Physical & mental health: we offer gym subsidies and access to therapy via Spill
• Equity: share options in a fast-growing company (BSPCE/EMI)
• Make your mark on an early-stage climate product in a high-impact space

DEI Statement

Granular Energy is dedicated to fostering diversity and nurturing talent. If you don't possess all the skills listed above but believe you have the qualities we're seeking, we encourage you to reach out. We value diverse perspectives and are committed to building an inclusive team.

We look for candidates who have a high level of demonstrated comfort with cultural competency. People of colour, people with disabilities, veterans, women, lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people are encouraged to apply. All applicants will be considered without regard to race, colour, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, sex, marital or parental status, disability, gender identity or expression, age, or any other basis prohibited by law.

Location/remote-first

Granular Energy is a remote-first organisation and this role is 100% remote. We hire employees that live in mainland Western & Central-West Europe (e.g. France, Germany, Austria, northern Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, northern Spain, or mainland UK) so they can get to Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam, or London by train within a reasonable time frame 3 times per year (either night train or half-day ride).

A Bit More About Our Product

Our product currently consists of a portfolio management solution for energy suppliers, retailers, utilities, traders. It helps our clients model their portfolio of supply and demand in a comprehensive way, and manage and optimise the flow and attribution of carbon-free energy within this portfolio. It supports the launch and service of new-generation, more transparent green offers, while helping portfolio managers streamline their operations and risk management. We would welcome your thoughts and questions on this value proposition, in our first screening interview.

Our recruitment process

• Initial 30-minute screening call by someone from the People team
• Live case study with Technical Solutions team - 90 mins
• Final 30 to 60 minute with C-level