Principal Product Manager

Principal Product Manager

Location: Redwood City, CA Hybrid – 3 days/week in office Team: Product Type: Full-time

About GridCARE

GridCARE is a leading venture-backed startup 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 pioneering physics-based generative AI platform unlocks 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 and backed by leading climate-tech and deep-tech investors, GridCARE has assembled a world-class team spanning power systems, AI, and infrastructure.

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 — capacity acceleration for AI.
• Receive competitive compensation, equity, and benefits in a fast-growth, mission-driven environment.

The Role

We are seeking an experienced Principal Product Manager to own one of GridCARE's most strategically important product areas.

This role is responsible for defining and building products that help operationalize grid capacity across customer, partner, and market-facing workflows. You will own product strategy and execution for a critical operational platform, working closely with the Head of Product, engineering, power systems experts, commercial teams, customers, utilities, and strategic partners.

This product area sits at the intersection of grid operations, complex systems, real-time software, energy markets, optimization, simulation, machine learning, and AI-enabled workflows.

This is a senior individual contributor role with broad company impact. The ideal candidate combines deep product management expertise with strong understanding of power systems, energy markets, complex operational software, and practical fluency with AI tools. You should be comfortable using AI to accelerate product discovery, analysis, prototyping, documentation, and execution, while applying strong product judgment to complex technical and commercial tradeoffs.

Responsibilities

Product Leadership

• Own product strategy, roadmap, and execution for one of the most critical GridCARE products.
• Define how complex grid capabilities are translated into reliable, scalable customer and partner workflows.
• Lead integration across internal products and relevant external systems.
• Translate complex operational, market, and customer requirements into clear product specifications and execution plans.
• Drive prioritization across multiple product initiatives, balancing customer needs, technical constraints, regulatory requirements, and business objectives.
• Partner closely with engineering to deliver reliable, scalable, real-time operational systems.

Complex Systems & Platform Development

• Define capabilities for dispatch, orchestration, monitoring, verification, and performance management.
• Shape products that incorporate optimization, simulation, forecasting, machine learning, and AI-enabled workflows.
• Define requirements for monitoring, compliance, auditability, and performance measurement.
• Identify opportunities to use AI tools and workflows to accelerate product discovery, prototyping, documentation, analysis, and internal operations.
• Ensure products can operate reliably at utility and enterprise scale.

Customer & Cross-Functional Leadership

• Work directly with customers, utilities, market participants, and strategic partners to understand operational and commercial requirements.
• Represent GridCARE as a credible product leader in customer discussions, industry engagements, and strategic partnerships.
• Collaborate closely with engineering, power systems, commercial, and executive leadership teams.
• Author product requirements, business cases, strategic roadmaps, and product success metrics.
• Mentor other product managers and help scale GridCARE's product organization.

Qualifications

Must Have

• 8+ years of product management experience, including ownership of highly technical and complex software products.
• Proven track record building and scaling products from early stages through broad production deployment.
• Experience with complex systems involving advanced algorithms, optimization, simulation, orchestration, machine learning, or operational decision-making.
• Experience building real-time products that ingest, process, and act on live operational data.
• Deep understanding of power systems and grid operations.
• Strong understanding of energy and power markets.
• Familiarity with relevant industry standards, regulatory frameworks, and operational requirements.
• Practical fluency with AI tools and workflows, with the ability to use AI to improve product discovery, analysis, prototyping, communication, and execution.
• Exceptional communication and stakeholder management skills across engineering, executive leadership, customers, utilities, and external partners.
• Demonstrated success operating in ambiguous, fast-moving environments and leading cross-functional initiatives with significant complexity.

Nice to Have

• Experience working directly with utilities as customers or partners.
• Experience with virtual power plants, demand response, DERMS, EMS, grid operations software, energy-market software, or related systems.
• Experience at early-stage or high-growth startups.
• Background in electrical engineering, power systems, computer science, operations research, or a related technical field.
• Experience building products that leverage machine learning, AI agents, or AI-enabled workflows.

What We Offer

• Competitive salary, performance bonus, and meaningful equity stake.
• Comprehensive health, dental, and vision coverage.
• Lunch provided three days a week in office.
• Flexible hybrid schedule: primarily in-office for collaboration with flexibility for focused work.
• Access to leading academic, industry, and government partners in the AI-energy ecosystem.
• A small, world-class team where your work directly shapes the product and the company.
• A mission-driven culture focused on shaping the future of the energy transition.

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

Compensation: $200,000–$240,000 base salary