Manager, Software Engineering

Job Description

Uplight is creating a new category of energy. We make software that manages energy resources in homes and businesses—including things like smart thermostats, electric vehicles, solar panels, storage batteries, heat pumps, and even people’s behavior—to generate, shift, or save energy to balance the grid, making it more efficient and reliable. This creates clean energy capacity that can be used by the power grid instead of burning more fossil fuels. Our solutions accelerate the transition to clean energy and save money for energy customers.

We are seeking a Manager Software Engineering to join our team and help us achieve our ambitious goals for our business and the planet.

How you will make an impact

• Team Leadership and Management

  • Supervise and manage a team of Site Reliability Engineers, including hiring, training, mentoring, and evaluating performance to build a high-functioning team.
  • Set clear objectives, performance expectations, and development plans for SRE team members, ensuring alignment with company goals.
  • Conduct regular one-on-one meetings, team meetings, and performance reviews to provide feedback and address team needs.

• Service Reliability and Performance Management

  • Develop and implement strategies to improve the reliability, availability, and scalability of critical services and infrastructure.
  • Oversee the development and maintenance of monitoring, alerting, and incident response systems to ensure proactive management of service health.
  • Lead efforts in capacity planning, load testing, and disaster recovery planning to ensure systems can handle expected and unexpected loads.

• Incident and Problem Management

  • Manage and coordinate incident response efforts, including real-time troubleshooting, communication with stakeholders, and leading post-incident reviews.
  • Drive root cause analysis and implement corrective actions to prevent future incidents, ensuring continuous improvement of systems and processes.
  • Establish and enforce incident management protocols, including on-call rotations, escalation paths, and documentation.

• Automation and Tooling

  • Lead initiatives to automate repetitive tasks and processes, reducing manual intervention and enhancing operational efficiency.
  • Guide the team in building and maintaining infrastructure as code (IaC), continuous integration/continuous deployment (CI/CD) pipelines, and configuration management tools.
  • Evaluate, select, and implement tools and technologies that improve SRE capabilities, ensuring alignment with industry best practices.

• Collaboration with Engineering and Product Teams

  • Collaborate with software engineering, DevOps, and product teams to integrate reliability best practices into the development lifecycle.
  • Serve as a technical liaison between SRE and other teams, providing guidance on reliability, performance, and operational aspects of projects.
  • Participate in architectural reviews and provide input to ensure that new designs meet reliability and scalability standards.

• Operational Excellence and Process Improvement

  • Develop and enforce operational standards, procedures, and best practices for system reliability, monitoring, and incident management.
  • Identify and eliminate operational inefficiencies and bottlenecks, focusing on reducing toil and improving team productivity.
  • Drive a culture of continuous improvement by implementing metrics and key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure and enhance service reliability.

• Technical Leadership and Oversight

  • Provide technical leadership to the SRE team, guiding them in designing, building, and maintaining reliable and scalable infrastructure.
  • Review and approve technical designs and implementations, ensuring they adhere to reliability, security, and performance standards.
  • Stay updated on the latest trends, technologies, and best practices in site reliability engineering, and advocate for their adoption within the team.

• Budget and Resource Management

  • Manage the SRE team’s budget, including software licenses, cloud infrastructure costs, and tools procurement, ensuring cost-effectiveness and alignment with business needs.
  • Optimize resource allocation to maximize the impact of the SRE team, balancing workload, project demands, and operational responsibilities.

• Compliance and Security

  • Ensure that all SRE operations comply with regulatory, security, and compliance requirements, including data protection, access controls, and audit readiness.
  • Collaborate with security teams to identify and mitigate potential threats, vulnerabilities, and risks to infrastructure and services.

• Reporting and Documentation

  • Maintain thorough documentation of operational procedures, incident reports, and reliability metrics.
  • Generate and present reports on system performance, reliability, and improvement initiatives to senior management and other stakeholders.

What you bring to Uplight

• At least 24 months experience overseeing and guiding teams in the following areas:

  • Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI), Smart grid technology:

  • Design, implementation, and maintenance of advanced metering systems that support seamless data collection, remote monitoring, and real-time analysis for energy usage.

  • Manage cross-functional collaborations with data scientists, system architects, and security engineers to ensure that AMI systems are secure and highly available, delivering uninterrupted services to clients in the energy sector.

  • Control & System Engineering for Energy Tech Solutions, EV, demand response management:

  • Spearhead reliability and scalability initiatives for mission-critical systems, which form the backbone of energy distribution networks.

  • Work with the team to Develop frameworks and guidelines for the adoption of industry-standard practices in system engineering, ensuring fault-tolerance, minimal downtime, and rapid recovery protocols. efficiency.

  • Direct multi-disciplinary teams of SRE and system engineers in the implementation of reliable, automated solutions that adhere to stringent operational standards.

  • Implement process improvements that reduced incident response time and enhanced system uptime, translating into increased customer satisfaction and retention.

  • Demonstrated a commitment to fostering an agile, collaborative environment that prioritizes continuous learning and skills development among team members, helping the team stay at the forefront of emerging SRE practices.

  • Cloud Platforms (Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud Platform (GCP))

  • Infrastructure as Code (IaC) (Terraform, Kubernetes)

  • CI/CD (Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment) (CircleCI and Other CI/CD Tools)

  • Networking & DNS (Networking Concepts, DNS Management)

  • Security (Security Best Practices; Certificates Management)

  • Monitoring Tools & Observability

  • Incident Management & Reliability (PagerDuty & SRE Best Practices)

Education:

• Bachelor's degree in engineering, computer science, or related field.
• 24 months of managerial experience in Site Reliability Engineering in the field of energy technology or cleantech.

Why Join Uplight in Leading the Fight Against Climate Change?

At Uplight, we're not just offering a job – we're offering a chance to be part of the solution to one of the world's biggest challenges. As a certified B Corporation, we're deeply committed to both social and environmental responsibility. Here's why you should join our team of passionate Uplighters:

• Make a Meaningful Impact: Your work directly impacts our mission of decarbonization and building a more sustainable future.
• Grow Your Career: We offer ample advancement opportunities, robust learning and development programs, and a supportive team environment that fosters collaboration and innovation.
• Thrive: We offer comprehensive benefits, including flexible time off, generous parental leave, a wellness stipend, and work flexibility to help you thrive both personally and professionally.
• Belong to an Inclusive Community: We celebrate diversity and foster an inclusive workplace where everyone feels respected, empowered, and heard. Our Employee Resource Groups offer opportunities to connect with colleagues who share your interests and backgrounds.
• Be Part of a Growing Movement: Join a team of dedicated individuals who are passionate about creating a more sustainable future. We offer a collaborative environment where your ideas are valued and your contributions

Salary Range: $156,569.91 - $163,693.84 + bonus

In accordance with the Colorado Equal Pay for Equal Work Act, the approximate annual base compensation range is listed above. The actual offer, reflecting the total compensation package and benefits, will be determined by a number of factors including the applicant's experience, knowledge, skills, and abilities, as well as internal equity among our team.

Uplight provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type without regard to race (including hair texture and hairstyles), color, religion (including head coverings), age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local laws.