Plant Controls Lead - Energy Management System, PPC

About Fluidstack

We exist to make humanity more free. For most of human history, you farmed or you starved. Technology gave people more time for the things they wanted to do, instead of things they had to do. Powerful AI will be the biggest lever for human choice we've ever built - but only if models are aligned with what humanity actually wants. There are groups building AI who don't share these goals. Whoever deploys frontier compute infrastructure fastest will decide whether AI expands human freedom or shrinks it.

We're singularly focused on delivering 10 to 100s of GWs of compute faster than anyone else, rethinking every layer of the stack. We acquire power, design and build data centers, and operate them - with teams spanning hardware and software. Speed and scale are our key differentiators. Come be a part of building civilization-scale infrastructure for AI.

We hire people who care deeply about this problem space. If that is you, please apply!

How We Operate

• Be a barrel. Full autonomy. Own things end to end, take on scope without being asked, no permission required to operate outside your core role.

• Insane urgency. We drive everything forward as fast as possible.

• Reason from first principles. Challenge every assumption. Zero analogy thinking, no egos, the best idea wins.

• Love of the game. The frontier of AI is the most interesting problem of our time. We put in long hours at high intensity to push the frontier forward.

• Build something that actually matters. If you're going to spend your time, spend it on something that matters to the world.

The Power Generation Team

The Power Generation team designs and builds the power that runs Fluidstack's AI infrastructure, including grids that stand alone with no utility behind them.

Examples of key problems the team is working on

• Build an islanded grid at gigawatt scale, from a blank sheet. Generation, storage and compute running with no utility behind them, where the machine you design is the only thing holding voltage. No playbook exists at this size, so the architecture you set becomes the reference.

• Get power online in months, not years. Interconnection queues are measured in years and we do not have them. Generating our own power is how a site goes from signed lease to live compute inside six months, and the power system is the long pole in that plan.

• Make one power block, then build it a thousand times. A repeatable block and cluster unit, validated once and stamped across the fleet, is the only route to the scale we are targeting. Every bespoke site is schedule we do not get back.

• Design a grid whose largest load answers back. Compute is not passive demand here. Load behaviour, curtailment and shedding are design variables you negotiate and specify, a lever almost no power system engineer has ever been handed.

Role Scope

• Own the control stack. Own the control stack for fully off-grid campuses: the site energy management system, the plant controller for each power block and the dispatch logic across PV, BESS and gas, as one standard architecture that scales from a single block to a gigawatt-scale campus energized in six months.

• Write sequences our own code runs. Turn the control philosophy into sequences of operation covering every operating mode, source transition, blackstart path, emergency shed and degraded state, and prove each one in simulation and on a hardware-in-the-loop bench before the plant is energized. Build the plant model library and bench so any controller, vendor or our own, is tested against our plant before it ships to site.

• Hold the generation side of the control contract. Extend the contract between the power plant and the data center from one plant and one facility to many blocks feeding many buildings, with load reduction deadlines measured in seconds that both sides are measured against in production.

• Decide what we buy and what we build. Choose which components we bring in to energize the first campuses faster and which we build first, replace each bought piece with our own code on a planned schedule, and hold every supplier to our specification and conformance tests so Fluidstack keeps its configuration, its data and a clean exit.

• Lead commissioning and tuning in the field. Take each campus through frequency and voltage response, load-step testing against real AI load profiles and every mode transition, and fold each finding back into the standard so the next campus starts tuned.

• Build the team. Hire the controls software and test engineers who build the stack with you, sequenced against the components we replace first.

What We're Looking For

The below is a starting point. We always make space for exceptional people, so if you don't fit this role exactly, tell us where you would.

• 10+ years of experience in plant controls and energy management systems for utility-scale hybrid plants, including sequences of operation, controls software, and field commissioning.

• You've owned the plant controller or EMS on a utility-scale hybrid plant combining at least two of PV, BESS and thermal generation, and you can name the sites and the megawatts it dispatches today.

• You've written sequences of operation for source transitions, blackstart or islanding, and you've stood on site when they ran against energized equipment, including the times they did not work.

• You've shipped control software as a product, version-controlled, tested and released to running plants, and you know what changes when the loop closes on a real turbine or inverter fleet.

• You've brought a third-party controller or component into a live plant to hit a date, held the vendor to a specification through factory and site acceptance, and later replaced it with your own code without an outage.

• You've designed an interface between two control systems owned by different parties, with the data, timing and failure behavior written down and tested, not left to whoever integrated it.

• You've tuned a plant in the field, frequency and voltage response, ramp rates and load steps, and you can explain the tradeoff behind each setting you left in place.

• You write clearly enough that an OEM controls engineer, a commissioning agent and a CEO each get the decision they need from the same document.

• You're comfortable with regular travel: expect 25% or more, depending on business needs.

• Most of our engineering team, stakeholders, and work are based in Austin, TX, and we value working in person. We have a strong preference for Austin and run a hybrid model, but we're open to other locations for the right role and candidate.

• Bonus: Islanded or weak-grid operation (island utilities, mining and remote microgrids, offshore). Real-time simulation and hardware-in-the-loop testing. Industrial control protocols and OT security (DNP3, IEC 61850, IEC 62443).

We are committed to pay equity and transparency.

Fluidstack is an Equal Employment Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability and protected veterans’ status, or any other characteristic protected by law. Fluidstack will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records pursuant to applicable law.

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