Staff Forward-Deployed Engineer

Texture is building the operating system for the energy grid.

The grid is the largest machine humans have ever built and its running on infrastructure designed for a world where electricity flowed one direction from a few big power plants to a lot of dumb meters. That world is gone. Utilities today need to run real-time grid operations predict transformer failures before they happen integrate distributed energy resources break down decades of data silos and defer hundreds of millions in capital costs and theyre trying to do all of it on infrastructure that wasnt built for any of it. Texture is the data and software layer that makes the modern grid possible.

Were 14 people post-Series A hiring our next Staff Forward-Deployed Engineer.

What this role actually is

Youll be embedded with a small group of our customers smaller member-owned electric utilities (often rural) and the manufacturers of the energy hardware they buy from kickoff through production. That means:

• Joining our delivery and implementation team on customer calls. On the accounts youre embedded with youll understand what the customer actually needs (which is rarely what they first ask for) and youll own the room when the conversation turns technical.

• Owning real software work end-to-end two steps ahead. A lot of it is integration work: getting customer data onto the platform from new meters sensors and OEM devices. But its broader than that. Youll also build things like energy-accounting and bill-credit reporting behavioral demand-response programs that nudge end-customers via SMS instead of dispatching hardware and the data pipelines and infrastructure those features ride on. When a customer brings something new you dont ship a one-off you design the reference architecture for things of that kind so the work for this customer becomes the template for the next several. Our customers share more of a common software stack than youd expect which is why this approach compounds.

• Being the technical voice on new opportunities. When the commercial team is evaluating a deal that touches an unfamiliar data class say a customer with geothermal asking if Texture can support it youre the person who does the landscape analysis identifies the handful of vendors and control mechanisms involved and decides what were looking at: a clean platform fit a services-only engagement or a new data class worth building reference architecture for. The commercial team is great at understanding customer need; youre the one who can technically assess whether and how Texture should support it.

• Support the Head of Delivery Operations in developing our services-only engagement menu based on feedback loops and technical delivery scope.

• Translating between technical and non-technical worlds. Most of our utility customers dont have a deep software team. Explaining what the system needs to do to people who dont think in software is the actual job. This skill is essential.

• Production ownership. What you ship is production code. You share on-call for the systems you build. Youre responsible for speccing the work yourself.

• Quarterly traveling to conduct in-person implementation and training workshops as needed.

This role reports to the CTO but is cross-functional and sits on our implementation team which is led by the Head of Delivery Operations.

What 90 days looks like

By the end of your first 90 days you should be ramped on Textures platform and architecture on the realities of utility and OEM customers and on what they actually need from software like ours. You should be hopping on calls directly with the technical people on the customer side and driving toward outcomes not just listening. And you should be 3060 days into your first reference-architecture project: a new class of data we dont yet support where youve done the landscape analysis made the platform-fit-vs-services call and started building.

Who were looking for

• 10 years of engineering. Youve shipped systems that mattered repeatedly. You dont need someone to tell you what production-ready means.

• Operates independently. Comfortable owning ambiguity. You dont need a PM or a spec to make good decisions.

• Strong communicator especially to non-technical audiences. This is load-bearing for the role.

• Breadth across the stack is a real plus. Backend integration work is the core but the role naturally pulls in DevOps and infrastructure (we recently stood up a VPN tunnel and supporting infra to connect a customers on-prem utility-scale battery system) data engineering (energy accounting and bill credits) and a bit of data science (assessing whether a behavioral demand-response push actually changed customer behavior). If youve worked across two or three of those areas youll be more effective here. None of them are requirements judgment and willingness to learn matter more.

• Curious about the energy grid. You dont have to come from energy most of us didnt. But if the words co-op utility DER interconnection queue or load shifting make you want to learn more youll have fun here.

Prior forward-deployed solutions-engineering or consulting experience is a plus not a requirement. Two of our current engineers doing this kind of work hadnt done it before joining Texture and are doing a phenomenal job.

Stack (we use it; you dont need to come in knowing it)

TypeScript React Go Kafka GraphQL federation AWS TimescaleDB.

Weve made the bet that great engineers can pick up languages and frameworks. What we hire for is judgment ownership and the ability to think across the stack. If youve never written Go and the rest looks familiar well be fine.

Comp and logistics

• Annual base salary: $225000 $245000

• Equity: 0.08 0.12% common stock options (well walk through the specifics in our first conversation)

• Benefits: medical dental vision (covered) 401(k) flexible PTO

• Location: remote-first. We have a great office in NYC and a slight preference for candidates in/near NYC but its not a requirement.

• Reports to: Victor Quinn Co-founder and CTO

How to apply

Send a resume a LinkedIn and a 200-word answer to this question:

Describe a time you explained a technical system to a non-technical customer or stakeholder and what you changed about your explanation when it wasnt landing.

We read every application. We dont do take-home assignments. The loop:

1. 30-min intro with our CTO

2. 30-min with our Head of Delivery Operations

3. Two technical-depth conversations with two of our senior engineers

4. A panel customer simulation: a live simulated customer engagement with several members of the team followed by their questions for you

5. Offer

Typical timeline from first conversation to offer: 4 weeks.

Texture is an equal opportunity employer. We welcome applicants of all backgrounds and do not discriminate on the basis of race color religion creed sex sexual orientation gender identity or expression national origin age disability veteran status marital or partnership status pregnancy or reproductive decisions caregiver status immigration or citizenship status height weight unemployment status genetic information arrest or conviction record (consistent with the NYC Fair Chance Act) or any other characteristic protected by federal state or local law. If you need a reasonable accommodation to participate in the application or interview process email well make it work.

Required Experience:

Staff IC