Senior Distribution Planning Engineer

GridCARE is an AI-native platform company that accelerates power delivery to large-scale AI infrastructure, including data centers, by reducing the typical years-long time-to-energize delay down to months. The company partners with data centers and electric utilities to unlock latent capacity within the existing power grid, avoiding the need to build new generation assets. By applying advanced AI analytics and large-scale data processing, GridCARE identifies underutilized grid capacity and enables faster, more efficient interconnection for high-demand compute workloads such as AI inference and sovereign low-latency computing. GridCARE's mission is closely tied to sustainability and climate goals by maximizing the utilization of existing grid infrastructure rather than requiring costly and carbon-intensive new construction. The company highlights that the US grid operates at less than 32% utilization even in its most congested locations, representing a significant opportunity to serve growing AI energy demand without proportional increases in new energy infrastructure. This approach supports a more efficient and lower-impact path to scaling AI factories. What makes GridCARE unique is its combination of AI-driven grid analytics, utility partnerships, and a platform specifically designed for large flexible loads. The company has demonstrated concrete results, including unlocking over 400 MW of capacity for Portland General Electric years ahead of schedule, securing 150 MW for AI Fabrik, and identifying 650 MW of untapped capacity on a New York utility network. GridCARE claims to create over $25 billion in value per gigawatt of accelerated power capacity delivered.

About Us

GridCARE is the pioneer of Power Acceleration — a new category solving the most critical constraint in AI's growth trajectory: immediate access to power. As demand for computing skyrockets, access to energy has become the defining bottleneck in the AI infrastructure race. While leading tech companies invest billions in speculative, long-term solutions that may take decades to arrive, GridCARE's Energize™ platform uses physics-based AI to identify and activate gigawatts of hidden capacity in today's electric grid — enabling hyperscalers, data center developers, and utilities to power AI infrastructure years sooner than conventional approaches and without costly upgrades.

Founded at Stanford's Doerr School of Sustainability, GridCARE has assembled a world-class team spanning power systems, AI, and infrastructure, and is backed by leading climate-tech and deep-tech investors.

At GridCARE, you will:

⚡ Work at the intersection of AI, energy, and infrastructure — the foundation of the next industrial revolution.

🤝 Partner with hyperscalers, developers, and utilities on high-impact, real-world deployments.

🌎 Help shape a more abundant, efficient, and resilient energy future for the digital era.

🚀 Join a company defining a new category — Power Acceleration for AI.

💰 Receive competitive compensation, equity, and benefits in a fast-growth, mission-driven environment.

Learn more about GridCARE:

• TechCrunch: GridCARE thinks more than 100 GW of data-center capacity is hiding in the grid

• Utility Dive: Portland General Electric invests in AI-powered flexibility to speed data-center connection

• GridCARE Raises $64 Million Series A to Create a New Category: Power Acceleration

• GridCARE Named a World Economic Forum Technology Pioneer for AI Power Innovation

The Role

We're hiring a Senior Distribution Planning Engineer to own GridCARE's distribution planning workstreams.

You'll perform distribution power system analyses — power flow studies in CYME and equivalent tools — and build out the planning workflows behind them, aligning distribution results with GridCARE's analyses and platform. You'll have engineering support, but you own the discipline: the methodology, the standards, and execution with utility engagements. Potential to build out a team of distribution engineers as the company and engagements grow.

Responsibilities

• Perform distribution and subtransmission power system analyses: power flow, hosting capacity and load-serving studies, contingency and reconfiguration analysis, voltage and thermal limits, and protection considerations.

• Build out GridCARE's distribution planning workflows end to end — model setup, data intake standards, study criteria, QA, and deliverables.

• Align distribution analyses with GridCARE's tools, analyses, and platform, including how distribution findings connect to transmission-level work.

• Assess which flexibility resources can be credited as capacity at the distribution level — batteries, on-site generation, volt/VAR control, feeder reconfiguration.

• Establish planning criteria, documentation, and validation practices that align with utility distribution planning processes.

• Partner with Product and AI/ML teams to translate distribution planning methodology into repeatable and scalable platform capability.

• Lead technical review sessions with utility planners and address utility concerns on data, criteria, and methodology.

• Travel at least several times a year for in-person utility engagements and conferences.

Qualifications

Required

• 6-8+ years work experience, including distribution or subtransmission planning.

• Experience inside a utility distribution planning department.

• Hands-on ownership of distribution planning studies: power flow, capacity and load forecasting, contingency and reconfiguration analysis, hosting capacity, voltage and protection studies, and capital planning justification.

• Strong working fluency in CYME or Synergi

• Working knowledge of DER interconnection standards and state interconnection rules (IEEE 1547, CA Rule 21 or equivalent).

• Familiarity in Python, and comfort working directly with large, imperfect datasets using power system tool APIs and scientific computing packages (pandas, numpy, etc.).

• BS in Electrical Engineering.

Preferred

• MS in Electrical Engineering; PE license.

• Experience with large-load or data center interconnection at distribution or subtransmission voltages.

• Experience with multiple distribution modeling tools (CYME, Synergi, WindMill, OpenDSS, ETAP) and GIS-based network models.

• Experience working across multiple utility territories and regulatory environments.

• Demonstrated use of AI tools in technical engineering work, with sound judgment about their limits.

• Familiarity with machine-learning approaches to power system analysis and how to validate them.

• Experience building planning methodology or standards from scratch.

Location

• Redwood City, CA — hybrid, 3 days/week in office.

What We Offer

• Competitive salary, performance bonus, and equity.

• Comprehensive health, dental, and vision coverage.

• Lunch provided three days a week in office.

• Hybrid schedule: 3 days in office for collaboration, 2 days remote for focused work.

• Access to leading academic, industry, and government partners in the AI-energy ecosystem.

• A mission-driven team focused on shaping the future of the energy transition.

Salary Range

$140,000-$210,000 Total (Base & Bonus)

Join us in tackling one of the most important infrastructure challenges of our time — enabling the energy foundation for the AI era.