Lead Quality Engineer - Build Operations
About the job
- Bachelor's degree in an engineering or STEM discipline.
- At least 7 years of experience in a manufacturing environment as a Manufacturing Engineer, Test Engineer, Reliability Engineer, or Quality Engineer.
- Define and maintain Critical Loop's Quality Management System and provide training on ISO 9001 compliance requirements and industry standards.
- Perform and train quality assurance for electrical and mechanical systems, including drawings, production and test operations inspection signoffs, and verification of compliance with procedures.
- Advise design, manufacturing, supply chain, and leadership teams on product quality and safety, and solve related problems.
- Partner with Product and Project Engineering to create inspection plans for deployable systems and support their implementation during operations.
- Identify major quality-related issues and risks affecting manufacturing and operations, then partner with stakeholders to minimize risk and implement process improvements.
- Assess business processes, systems, and products through internal audits for compliance with customer requirements, company procedures and policies, and ISO 9001 standards.
- Use corrective and preventive action processes to address non-conformances and improve quality management across product lines.
- Drive quality assurance within the supply chain by ensuring supplier qualification and ongoing performance monitoring.
- Define a team growth plan and roadmap to increase quality support across production, test, and deployment operations.
- Demonstrated experience with geometric dimensioning and tolerancing, military standards, IPC standards, and the ISO family of standards.
- ASQ-CQA-RAB certified lead auditor credential or lead-auditor training with direct hands-on experience.
- Proficiency with design of experiments, statistical process control, root cause analysis, corrective action, advanced product quality planning, and process failure mode and effects analysis.
- Strong technical writing skills and the ability to communicate effectively with technical and non-technical stakeholders.
- Strong problem-solving skills and the ability to work independently and take initiative in challenging situations.
- Demonstrated experience leading and building small teams that collaborate across stakeholder teams.
About the company
Critical Loop provides rapidly deployable energy solutions for industrial customers facing grid instability. It combines mobile, megawatt-scale battery storage with a three-part hardware stack—the Controller for autonomous power management, the Combiner as a microgrid backbone, and relocatable air-cooled batteries—managed by autonomous software that uses real-time telemetry to optimize performance and ensure uninterrupted power. The company differentiates itself with an integrated hardware-software platform, fast deployment timelines, autonomous power management, and scalability from microgrids to multi-site deployments, offered under a batteries-as-a-service model. Its goal is to make reliable, scalable power accessible where the existing electrical grid struggles by delivering flexible, fast-to-deploy energy solutions that keep facilities online and cost-efficient.
Company Size
11-50
Company Stage
Series A
Total Funding
$26M
Headquarters
Long Beach, California
Founded
2023
Get referred to Critical Loop
See people who can refer or advise you
Simplify's Take
What believers are saying
- April 2026 Series A raised $26M, bringing total committed funding to $49M.
- San Diego International Airport, TeraWatt, and Mojave deployments validate repeatable customer demand.
- PG&E completed interoperability testing, and 85-plus Flex Connect projects sit in pipeline.
What critics are saying
- California is the entire business today; any PG&E or CPUC policy shift hurts revenue.
- Hardware deployments depend on LG Energy Solution Vertech supply and battery availability.
- If California flexible-interconnection adoption stalls, Critical Loop becomes a niche battery integrator.
What makes Critical Loop unique
- Cygnus won CSIP 2030.5 and UL 3141, first controller with both in 2026.
- Critical Loop combines relocatable 1MW CLB-5100 batteries with utility-interoperable software controls.
- PG&E Flex Connect approval gives it a rare California utility-distribution pathway.
Help us improve and share your feedback! Did you find this helpful?
Benefits
Hybrid Work Options
Company Equity
Growth & Insights and Company News
6 month growth
↑ 17%1 year growth
↑ 21%2 year growth
↑ 21%Critical Loop unveils csip-certified power controller for California industry. Critical Loop's Cygnus advances flexible grid interconnection for California industry. Critical Loop, an industrial power solutions company, has announced that Cygnus, its software-defined power controller, has achieved official CSIP 2030.5 certification and successfully completed interoperability testing with Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E). The milestone places Critical Loop among PG&E's Flex Connect Approved Solution Providers and strengthens the company's ability to support flexible interconnection for commercial and industrial customers across California. Cygnus has also secured a UL 3141 listing. According to Critical Loop, the combination makes Cygnus the first power controller on the market to hold both the CSIP 2030.5 certification and UL 3141 listing. Together, the certifications provide customers with a single power-control solution designed for compatibility across different utility environments, including PG&E and Southern California utilities. The two qualifications serve different purposes, but their combination is significant for Critical Loop's strategy. The CSIP 2030.5 certification supports secure communication and interoperability with utility systems, while the UL 3141 listing addresses the safety requirements associated with power-control equipment. Critical Loop said that although PG&E interoperability does not require customers to hold both credentials, having both expands the potential deployment environments for Cygnus as California's electricity system evolves. The announcement comes as California faces rapidly increasing electricity demand from transportation electrification, energy storage, commercial facilities and other large-load applications. Traditional grid expansion can require lengthy planning, permitting and construction timelines. Flexible interconnection offers another approach by allowing customers to connect using available grid capacity while managing electricity consumption when the distribution system becomes constrained. Critical Loop is applying this approach to commercial and industrial applications through Cygnus. The controller can dynamically manage power consumption and coordinate behind-the-meter resources according to grid conditions and utility requirements. This enables facilities to operate within defined limits while making greater use of available grid capacity. "Businesses shouldn't have to choose where they operate based on power availability," said Bala Ramamurthy, co-founder and CEO of Critical Loop. "Cygnus was built to help customers and utilities maximize existing grid capacity without waiting years for grid upgrades. Securing CSIP 2030.5 certification and successful interoperability testing with PG&E alongside our UL 3141 listing demonstrates that flexible interconnection is ready for larger commercial and industrial facilities." Cygnus is now part of the growing technology ecosystem supporting PG&E's Flex Connect program. The initiative enables customers with controllable electrical loads to connect to the grid without necessarily waiting for conventional distribution upgrades. Through automated energy management and secure communications, participating facilities can access available capacity while adjusting their electricity consumption during periods when the distribution system is constrained. The model can be particularly relevant to facilities whose electricity requirements vary throughout the day. Instead of requiring the grid to accommodate a facility's maximum potential demand at all times, flexible interconnection can establish operating limits and use controllable resources to remain within those boundaries. Critical Loop's interoperability testing with PG&E demonstrated the use of behind-the-meter battery storage and intelligent controls to manage commercial and industrial loads under real-world operating conditions. During unconstrained periods, a facility can draw available power from the grid. When demand restrictions become active, on-site battery storage and other controls can help keep electricity consumption within hourly limits established by the utility. For industrial operators, this approach can provide an alternative to relying exclusively on conventional backup generation or waiting for major utility infrastructure projects to be completed. By combining grid access with energy storage and automated controls, facilities can potentially make greater use of existing electrical capacity while maintaining compliance with utility requirements. PG&E's Flex Connect program is already supporting operational projects. The program currently includes five operational sites involving commercial electric vehicle fleets, public fast-charging infrastructure and battery energy storage systems. More than 85 additional projects are in the active pipeline, covering EV charging, battery storage and emerging commercial and industrial applications. The expansion of Flex Connect into additional large-load applications could create opportunities for technologies capable of coordinating facility demand with utility requirements. Critical Loop said interoperable solutions such as Cygnus can help customers access available grid capacity sooner while longer-term distribution infrastructure projects are being developed. "Flex Connect is helping customers connect to the grid faster by making better use of capacity that's already available today," said Alex Portilla, director, Clean Energy Technology Platforms at PG&E. "Our goal is to enable customers to bring their own solutions while giving us the visibility and reliability needed to operate the grid safely. Critical Loop's successful interoperability testing demonstrates how innovative technologies can help expand flexible interconnection beyond EV charging into a broader range of commercial and industrial applications, supporting California's growing demand for electricity without waiting for traditional infrastructure upgrades." Critical Loop's relationship with PG&E also extends to the utility's innovation initiatives. The company was a finalist in PG&E's 2025 Innovation Pitch Fest, an R&D program intended to identify and rapidly test emerging technologies addressing operational challenges across the utility system. Critical Loop was selected as one of the finalists from approximately 400 applicants. With its PG&E interoperability testing completed and its CSIP 2030.5 certification and UL 3141 listing in place, Critical Loop is now onboarding commercial and industrial customers across California. The company is positioning Cygnus as a technology for facilities seeking to manage electricity demand, integrate behind-the-meter storage and use available grid capacity without relying solely on lengthy traditional grid expansion. As California's electricity demand continues to evolve, flexible interconnection is emerging as one method for coordinating new loads with existing infrastructure. Critical Loop's latest certification and interoperability milestones give Cygnus a foundation for participating in that changing market, particularly among commercial and industrial customers whose power requirements could benefit from automated controls and flexible operating strategies.
Critical Loop, an industrial power solutions company, today announced a $26 million Series A round led by Conifer Infrastructure Partners and Hanover, with p...
Critical Loop, an industrial power solutions company, has raised $26 million in a Series A round led by Conifer Infrastructure Partners and Hanover, bringing total funding to $49 million. Better Ventures Climate Capital, Adapt Nation Capital and Cyrus Ventures also participated. The company addresses grid interconnection delays by combining battery storage, generation and its Cygnus software controller into deployable microgrids, reducing connection times from years to days or weeks. Its CLB-5100 is a scalable 1MW battery system that can connect to various power sources and be relocated to address grid capacity constraints. Critical Loop has secured projects including San Diego International Airport and multiple EV charging sites, and maintains a supply agreement with LG Energy Solution Vertech for US-made batteries. The company currently operates across California.
How Critical Loop uses microgrids to unlock industrial load. Led by a former SpaceX engineer, the startup just raised a $26 million Series A for more scalable storage-based microgrids. April 13, 2026 Photo credit: Critical Loop Before starting to work in the energy industry, Balachandar Ramamurthy was putting astronauts into space. As the chief engineer responsible for flight safety at SpaceX, he took on a "multidisciplinary coordination problem" - one not unlike what the energy industry faces today, turning distributed resources into cohesive grid assets. That's why in 2023, he became the co-founder and CEO of Critical Loop, a startup that builds modular microgrids for industrial facilities. "You can see the parallels in how we think about designing and operating these microgrid systems," he told Latitude Media. "If you think about spacecrafts, you launch them, and you can't go repair them easily. In the same way, distributed energy assets need to be maintainable [as easily] as possible to be economical." Armed with this principle, Critical Loop announced today that it has raised a $26 million Series A funding round, including equity and equipment financing, bringing its total capital raised to $49 million. The round was led by Conifer Infrastructure Partners and Hanover Technology Investment Management, with participation from Climate Capital and Better Ventures, among others. The company develops energy storage-based microgrids centered on a proprietary "combiner": a piece of equipment that integrates diverse power sources. This technology enables the microgrid to interface with various battery types, grid connections, and on-site generation sources without requiring custom technical adaptations for each new component. The idea is to make microgrids hardware-agnostic, and as easy to install as plugging them in. "We've built a system that allows us to standardize how you install [microgrids] into industrial facilities, and scale them relatively rapidly, because it's an extensible system where you can add additional batteries," Ramamurthy said. Once that's done, Critical Loop orchestrates the microgrid remotely via software, and coordinates with the utility to flex the facility's load in real time as needed. LATITUDE STUDIOS Elevate your brand with Latitude studios. Work with Latitude's expert team of storytellers, producers, and marketers to create impactful campaigns that generate leads and enhance your brand's thought leadership. Addressing speed-to-power. With this approach Critical Loop aims to solve the speed-to-power challenge that is becoming core to the U.S. energy system, as a surge in artificial intelligence data centers strains an already-congested grid. While it's the data centers stuck in long interconnection queues that get the most attention, the bottleneck can also stall other industrial facilities that face load rejection letters from utilities when trying to expand their operations. For example, Critical Loop partnered with TeraWatt Infrastructure, a fleet-charging hub operator that was denied a request for 10 MW for two sites it needed to expand; the utility said it wouldn't be able to provide the power for five years unless the facility ensured load flexibility. On behalf of the customer, Critical Loop engaged the utility and noted that for the vast majority of the year, the 10 MW would be fully available. Capacity would be limited only during specific windows, and even then, the shortfall was just one to two megawatts. Critical Loop demonstrated that it could bridge that need with its microgrids. TeraWatt was ultimately able to bypass the years-long wait. "There's a lot of interest in building super off-grid, gigantic power plants," Ramamurthy said. "But most of the large loads are going to have some sort of grid tie, and this strategy allows you to have fewer batteries and fewer systems to solve the problem." Critical Loop offers its microgrids through both energy-as-a-service agreements, where it retains ownership of the assets, and long-term service agreements, where the customer purchases the equipment while Critical Loop provides ongoing remote orchestration and operation. The company is targeting the industrial midmarket, which includes sectors like industrial and commercial real estate, where there's a need for energy storage systems ranging from five to 100 megawatt-hours. Despite still being early-stage, Critical Loop already manages four MWh of permanent storage at San Diego International Airport, alongside a movable fleet of approximately 30 MWh used for critical needs such as emergency utility outages. As a technology-agnostic provider, the company utilizes batteries sourced from six different manufacturers; the individual units range from 250 kilowatts to two MW. "We've deployed about 50 MWh worth of microgrids in the last year alone," said Ramamurthy. "This year, we are well on our way to deploying at least 50 MWh, with the goal of reaching 100 MWh." The latest fundraise will support this expansion, as well as research and development activities, and "making sure the production systems and supply chain work," he said. * Bianca Giacobone Bianca Giacobone is a contributing reporter at Latitude Media. She is a freelance business reporter and fact-checker covering the clean energy transition, based in Italy. Related Reading Stay ahead of energy's next frontier. Subscribe for free:
Critical Loop, a microgrid and energy solutions startup founded in 2023, has filed to raise $37.4 million in new funding, according to documents submitted to the US Securities and Exchange Commission. The company develops rapidly-deployable microgrids combined with predictive software to make power more accessible and efficient. Critical Loop serves manufacturers, transportation hubs, data centres and critical infrastructure, helping customers operate at full capacity whilst reducing energy costs. The filing was made under Regulation D, which allows companies to raise capital without full securities registration. Companies must file within 15 days after the first investor commits to the offering. Critical Loop is led by chief executive officer Balachandar Ramamurthy. The company's mission centres on fixing the electric grid through scalable energy solutions.