Product Manager, Installer Experience

We are looking for great people. We can be flexible on scope and seniority. If you believe you are qualified for any portion of this role, we strongly encourage you to apply.

Why SPAN exists

Founded by Tesla’s former head of energy, SPAN was founded because this is our Decade to Decarbonize. 

About 40% of greenhouse gas emissions are controlled by things we do in our households, decisions we make as individuals. Most of us feel powerless about confronting climate change, but the things in our basements, garages, and on our roofs directly influence the largest single slice of the problem (source). 

The answer is to electrify everything, which we do by:

1. Assisting the electric grid: The North American electric grid is the ‘world’s largest machine’. It is old, it is expensive to maintain and it was designed to transport power in one direction. And as we electrify everything, it is not equipped to handle an increase in volume of transport.
2. Upgrading our gas appliances and gasoline cars to electric. All the electricity in the world will still not power our gas dryers, furnaces, water heaters, stoves and cars. Electric versions of these appliances exist and they are safer, cheaper, cleaner, smaller and quieter.
3. Making more electricity at home. This increases the amount of clean electricity in circulation and does it without stressing the electric grid.

What SPAN is doing 

We envision a future where our homes are

• Self-reliant: They make their own energy and decide when to use that energy. They warn you of outages, prepare themselves, and adapt energy use to endure even the most severe outages.
• All-electric: Our homes cannot be self-reliant until they are all-electric. SPAN removes constraints that exist with your existing power service, allowing households to upgrade their gasoline cars and gas appliances to their electric superiors.
• Looking out for us: They tell you if something bad has happened, is happening or will happen to your most-expensive appliances
• A model citizen of the grid: They assist the grid at times of need, with little inconvenience to you.

None of this is possible without a modern-day electric panel. So we started by completely reinventing this hundred year-old appliance.

If you want to learn more, watch (span.io/decadetodecarbonize) or read (span.io/plan) about the progress we have made, the products and services we have announced for next year and how our partners are supporting us on our mission.

Why you should consider this role

We think of the installer as our first customer, and often our biggest product champions. The journey is envisioned to,

• Simplify installs: To solve for electrification at the scale and speed required, we’ll need to leverage the existing electrician labor force across the country. This means that out of the box, the SPAN Panel needs to be as simple and intuitive to install as traditional, familiar electrical panels.. This is primarily enabled by SPAN’s Installer app, which you will own.
• Scale installs: You will own processes and workflows to activate a high volume of installation companies, and distributed crews within each company. This involves making it simple for businesses to sign up, and for crews to receive effective on-the-job training and troubleshooting via SPAN’s apps.
• Scale offerings: SPAN has a fast growing product line and feature set, and integrates with a fast growing number of hardware components (solar inverters, battery systems, sub-panels, electric car chargers, home devices, etc.). You will ensure that installer enablement and processes scale gracefully as we expand.

This role will closely collaborate with Hardware Product Managers, Application Engineers, Sales Engineers, Support Specialists and Installers.

Responsibilities

1. Discovery: Opportunistically manage non-linear and rapid discovery cycles with internal teams, customers and partners to gain a solid understanding of the problems-to-solve.
2. Design: Build up to solutions with an eye on usability, scalability, speed-to-market and reusability. Present and articulate design decisions, concepts and trade-offs verbally, visually, or through rapid prototypes.
3. Delivery: Act as product owner initially, defining stories and acceptance criteria, managing the backlog, running scrum ceremonies with up to 2 engineering teams, facilitating UATs and overseeing QA. We expect to have dedicated product owners as the team grows.
4. Go To Market: Support frontline teams to ensure they are equipped to rollout, sell, train and support your products and features.
5. Iteration: Ensure what we launch, lands. Measure product usage and performance, collect qualitative feedback and derive actionable insights to improve existing features and prioritize/design new features.

Experience we are looking for

• 4+ years of consumer or enterprise software product development experience
• Familiarity with home electrical systems, solar and storage design and/or installation 
• Experience building software solutions which interface hardware (e.g. IoT devices, sensors, consumer electronics, energy equipment, network equipment)
• A degree in Electrical, Mechanical or Systems engineering a plus
• Familiarity with energy efficiency, EV charging equipment, power electronics, or AC/DC power a plus
• Experience working directly with electrical/mechanical contractors and/or tradespeople is a plus
• Knowledge of National Electrical Code (NEC) and general electrical code guidelines for solar PV and energy storage systems, and/or building codes a plus

Working at SPAN

We are a small, diverse team of creative and mission-driven thinkers. We value open communication, teamwork, and a make-it-happen attitude - no job is too big or too small. We strive to make change by imagining what the future could be and building a product to complete that vision. We are looking to grow our team with talented people who are on the same mission to shape the future of energy.

Working at Span, you can expect:

• Competitive compensation and early equity at a well-funded, fast-growing, venture-backed company (read more on why Amazon and others invested in Span here and here)
• A sunny 20,000 sqft hardware lab + office space in SOMA, a stone’s throw from Caltrain and close to BART
• Flexible hours and vacation time - we simultaneously work hard and make space for the important stuff
• Additional Span holidays in celebration of causes we believe in (this year so far we provided days off in celebration of Black History in Feb, Women’s History in March, Earth Day in April and Gay Pride & Juneteenth in June) 
• Comprehensive benefits including a choice of medical plans; dental, vision, life and disability insurance
• Diversity - we are serious about this. Span embraces diversity and equal opportunity in a serious way. We are committed to building a team that represents a variety of backgrounds, perspectives, and skills. The more inclusive we are, the better our work will be.