Software Engineer (Backend)

Job Description

Job Description

Software Engineer (Backend)  

Location: Burlingame, CA 

Department: ESS Engineering 

Reports to: Senior Manager, Software Engineering 

Position Type: Full-time 

About the Company  

Peak Energy is the first American venture to advance globally proven sodium-ion battery systems as the storage standard for the new era of renewable energy on a resilient grid. 

Sodium-ion is cheap, readily available, and safe — making it the leading contender in a rapidly evolving market. 

Our leadership team is powered by decades of expertise in scaling gigawatt-level innovation at world-class companies such as Tesla, Northvolt, Apple, Powin, Enovix, Zipline, Solid Power, SunPower, and Fluence. We are backed by strategic investment and product partners including TDK Ventures, Eclipse Ventures, and GM Ventures. 

We recently announced America's first sodium-ion grid storage factory in Sacramento with production starting Q1 2027, and over $1B in signed customer commitments including Jupiter Power and Energy Vault. 

About the Role  

Peak Energy is looking for a Software Engineer, Backend to help improve and scale the software platform that manages, ingests, processes, and surfaces operational data from our grid-scale battery storage systems. 

Our platform transforms raw telemetry from batteries deployed in the field into meaningful data and metrics that customers, operators, and engineers rely on every day. As Peak grows from pilot deployments to gigawatt-scale production, this software becomes increasingly critical to our operations. 

This is a hands-on backend software engineering role focused on application development, API design, data processing, and system integration. You'll build and improve the services that connect our battery systems, manufacturing operations, and cloud applications, ensuring data is processed reliably and accessible across the organization. 

You'll join a small software team with significant ownership over the systems you build, working closely with ESS Engineering, Manufacturing Engineering, and Product. 

What You'll Do  

• Design, develop, and maintain backend applications and services that manage, ingest, process, and surface operational data from deployed battery systems. 

• Build and maintain APIs and application interfaces that enable communication between battery systems, cloud services, and internal applications. 

• Develop data processing pipelines that support critical battery performance metrics, including round-trip efficiency, availability, and cycle tracking. 

• Design and optimize database schemas, queries, and data models to support operational applications, reporting, and analytics. 

• Develop software integrations connecting manufacturing systems, physical devices, and cloud applications. 

• Improve the reliability, scalability, and performance of backend services as Peak's deployment footprint grows. 

• Collaborate with hardware, firmware, and systems engineering teams to integrate new functionality and support evolving product requirements. 

• Troubleshoot production issues, improve application observability, and continuously enhance software quality. 

What You'll Bring (Minimum Qualifications)  

• 4+ years of professional software engineering experience, with a strong focus on backend application development. 

• Strong proficiency in Python and experience building production-grade backend applications and services. 

• Experience designing, developing, and maintaining REST APIs or other service interfaces. 

• Strong SQL skills, including PostgreSQL, database schema design, query optimization, and data modeling. 

• Experience developing data processing pipelines or applications that ingest and transform data from multiple sources. 

• Familiarity with cloud-based application development on Azure, AWS, or GCP. 

• Strong understanding of software architecture, testing, debugging, and version control. 

• Experience owning production software, including troubleshooting, monitoring, and continuous improvement. 

Preferred Qualifications  

• Experience with Azure Functions, Azure Service Bus, or similar cloud application services. 

• Experience with asynchronous processing, event-driven architectures, or distributed systems. 

• Familiarity with real-time data streaming technologies such as Kafka, Azure Event Hubs, or Kinesis. 

• Experience with battery systems, energy storage, IoT, industrial telemetry, or hardware-integrated software. 

• Experience working with time-series data and high-volume telemetry. 

• Familiarity with Docker, CI/CD workflows, and modern software deployment practices. 

• Experience partnering with embedded software, firmware, or hardware engineering teams. 

• Prior experience in a fast-paced startup environment building new software systems. 

Our Core Values  

• Speed Through Focus — Move fast but understand why. Focus on the goal, don't sacrifice quality. 

• Mission Over Self — Put the company's mission and team success ahead of individual interests. 

• Face the Brutal Truth — Transparency, honesty, big-picture curiosity. Fearless decision making. 

• Be a Good Person — Kindness, collaboration, and teamwork. 

Compensation & Benefits  

The salary range for this role is $180,000 - $240,000 , with actual pay varying based on work location, experience, and skills. Our competitive benefits package includes: 

• Flexible time off 

• Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision coverage 

• Strong 401(k) plan 

• Equity opportunities