Engineering Manager - Fullstack

Uplight on the Fast Company's Best Workplace for Innovators list for the fifth year in a row. By Taylor Fitzgerald on September 22, 2026 Since 2019, Uplight has operated at the grid-edge, meeting load growth and more intense weather not with new supply, but with the Demand Stack(R): integrating demand-side programs including demand response, virtual power plants, time-varying rates, and energy efficiency that activate energy customers. Fast Company named Uplight a Best Workplace for Innovators in 2026 in the Emerging Enterprises category, reflecting on its culture where innovation is infused throughout. Receiving the award for the fifth year in a row demonstrates Uplight's commitment to building a culture where employees at every level can share ideas and drive creative solutions. Uplight shines in clean energy tech innovation. Partnering with utility leaders, Uplight consistently invests in innovation to meet the needs of a dynamic industry while prioritizing affordability. This year Uplight has made progress on turning customer flexibility into a grid resource that utilities can plan around. Some examples of what Uplight has been up to this year include: Making Load Flexibility Dependable * Uplight Demand Stack: Uplight built an integrated framework that runs on a suite of artificial intelligence and machine learning models - covering detection and propensity, disaggregation and bill analytics, measurement and verification, and load forecasting, optimization, and dispatch - that identify and engage eligible customers and then enable utilities to forecast, dispatch, and evaluate these resources at scale. * Predictive Capacity Dispatch (PCD): To make demand response more reliable and reduce customer fatigue, PCD forecasts home-level load 24 hours ahead using smart meter and weather data, then staggers device dispatch for steady demand response. This year Uplight also added group-level targeting and event-length optimization, delivering 36 MW of sustained reduction at 3% prediction error in its first events. Making Load Flexibility Scalable * Scaled Flex Platform for 3 Million Participants: Uplight engineered and proof-tested a platform capable of dispatching demand response events to 3 million concurrent participants - far beyond the industry's typical thousands to low hundreds of thousands - enabling utilities to shed or shift massive loads instantly to prevent blackouts, with a major Asian utility deploying this record scale in summer 2026. * Integration Architectures for the DER Ecosystem: In May 2025, Uplight launched a Kafka-based Software Development Kit plus support for the IEEE 2030.5 open standard, giving original equipment manufacturers like battery makers a plug-and-play path to connect their devices to Uplight's Distributed Energy Resource (DER) management system without custom development - cutting DER onboarding time by 25-40%. A collaborative, flexible culture. A primary way that Uplight achieves its innovative presence in the clean energy sector is by supporting the company's employees across all departments, from technology to sales to operations. Uplight has employed several strategies to enhance employee engagement, creativity, and innovation: * Growth and Development: After a six-month 2025 pilot that paired 95 mentors and mentees, Uplight expanded its mentorship program company-wide in May 2026 to reinforce a culture of continuous development. * Community and Belonging: Seven employee resource groups anchor a culture of connection, spotlighted at the third annual ERG Leadership Summit with a two-day virtual event in October 2025 focused on leadership development and community building. At Uplight, Uplight encourage its employees to give back to the community as well. Through TeamUp!, Uplighters logged 129 volunteer hours in 2025 across Earth Day and holiday events in the US and India. * How Uplight Work: Project WoW (Ways of Working) streamlines processes and clarifies ownership across the organization. Additionally, its remote-first roles (supported by offices in Boulder, Boston, and Pune) take advantage of 20-25 days off and generous parental leave to keep teams flexible and supported. Cultivating a workplace culture where employees feel empowered to innovate is central to Uplight's mission of accelerating the clean energy ecosystem. Join the Uplight team and learn more about Fast Company's annual Best Workplaces for Innovators. The Demand Stack just got quantified. Learn how six integrated Demand Stack strategies could add 90 MW of capacity by 2030 for one utility - a 62% gain. Uplight News People at Uplight Taylor Fitzgerald. Taylor Fitzgerald is Uplight's Associate Marketing Manager. She writes for the Uplight blog, contributes to marketing campaigns, and assists with content development. Based in Charlotte, North Carolina, she loves to go to the movies, read, see live music, try new restaurants, and spend time with her family and friends. Get industry insights and updates from Uplight monthly via email. Subscribe today.

California VPP bills await Governor Newsom signature, Octopus Energy closes investment in DERs flex platform Uplight. September 1, 2026 Two VPP bills are awaiting California Governor Gavin Newsom's signature, while Octopus Energy US has completed its investment in behind-the-meter (BTM) flexibility platform provider Uplight. Two VPP bills pass California's legislature. Two virtual power plant (VPP) bills have passed California's legislature and now awaiting Governor Gavin Newsom's signature. Senate Bill 905 (SB 905) and SB 913, both authored by State Senator Josh Becker, cleared their final legislative hurdles and are expected to receive gubernatorial approval despite Newsom vetoing three VPP-related measures last year. The bills aim to unlock value from California's rapidly expanding fleet of customer-owned battery energy storage systems (BESS), solar installations, electric vehicles (EVs) and other flexible energy assets by enabling these resources to participate more fully in wholesale energy markets. SB 913 would mandate the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) to establish a valuation methodology for customer-sited BESS to export power onto the grid during periods of system stress. The legislation builds upon a recent California Independent System Operator (CAISO) staff proposal that permits exports from behind-the-meter batteries to participate in the statewide energy market. This framework would enable aggregated fleets of customer batteries to qualify for resource adequacy (RA) contracts based on the full volume of stored energy they can dispatch on demand. Under current market rules, fleets of customer devices can only participate in the RA market to the extent those assets reduce consumption at individual customer sites. If any customer within an aggregated fleet exports energy back to the grid, that exported power receives zero valuation - a structure that significantly constrains the volume of energy fleet operators can offer to the wholesale market. The proposed change would allow fleet operators to bid the total energy capacity they can reliably deliver from managed devices, rather than relying on estimates of individual customer consumption patterns. By design, these resources would only be selected when available at lower cost than competing generation sources, creating downward pressure on wholesale prices. SB 905 would establish a grid utilisation metric measuring the load factor across each segment of California's distribution network. The metric would identify which circuits and substations can accommodate substantially higher energy throughput without expensive infrastructure upgrades by redistributing demand away from peak periods. Analysis shows many distribution circuits operate well below capacity for most hours, reaching full utilisation for only a limited number of peak demand periods annually. Expanding grid equipment to serve these brief peaks represents an inefficient use of ratepayer funds, according to industry advocates. Once the grid utilisation metric is implemented, the CPUC would gain a straightforward mechanism to mandate annual improvements in utilisation rates. Utilities would respond by developing load flexibility programmes that incentivise customers to shift electricity consumption to off-peak hours. Beyond requiring net reductions in total utility costs, SB 905 does not prescribe specific programme designs. The legislative action comes as California confronts what the California Solar & Storage Association (CALSSA) characterises as an energy affordability crisis, with electricity rates climbing sharply even as demand continues to grow. Brad Heavner, executive director of CALSSA, stated, "California now has hundreds of thousands of solar-charged batteries installed on garages, campuses and farms throughout the state, with 2,000 more added every week. These and other customer devices could play a key role in mitigating energy prices if California's energy market rules allow them to do so." Octopus Energy US closes investment in Uplight. In other VPP news, retail electricity provider Octopus Energy has closed its investment in US energy software company Uplight. Announced 1 September, Uplight stated it will continue to operate as an independent company, using the investment to build on its focus in "customer-centric flexibility management." The company further stated that the investment supports its next phase of growth, including US$1 billion in customer savings and more than doubling flexible capacity to 20GW over the next five years. Nick Chaset, CEO of Octopus Energy US, will also hold the role of CEO as Uplight. The two companies will introduce two of Octopus Energy's products into Uplight's solution suite. Customer engagement application Octopus Shift provides a unified platform where consumers can register for and take part in utility flexibility schemes. The application streamlines the enrollment process and maintains ongoing customer participation through rewards, converting that engagement into grid capacity for utilities. Octopus PowerStore delivers residential BESS through a turnkey model requiring no upfront customer investment, eliminating a major obstacle to home BESS adoption. This approach provides utilities with dispatchable storage capacity for peak demand management whilst extending storage access to a wider customer base than pricing barriers would typically permit. Octopus Energy contributes substantial operational scale to the collaboration. The company manages the world's largest VPP, noting a 2GW milestone in September 2025, and supplies its technology and customer engagement solutions to across 27 countries. Schneider Electric, already an investor in Uplight, maintains its support alongside Octopus Energy's newly acquired majority position, backing the company's expansion through Schneider Electric's portfolio of grid, software, automation and energy management solutions. The partnership will help drive forward grid flexibility and demand-side management capabilities, enabling utilities to convert distributed energy resources into scalable, dependable and cost-efficient capacity that advances grid modernisation and the energy transition. Uplight started through the 2019 merger of a group of separate start-up companies including Simple Energy and Tendril. In 2021, Uplight reached a valuation of US$1.5 billion following investment from groups including Schneider Electric. In March 2025, Uplight announced it would partner with utility San José Clean Energy to expand the California utility's demand response programme. San José Clean Energy claimed it would be able to enroll a total of 25MW of dispatchable energy by 2028 and 5MW by the end of that summer. Hannah Bascom, general manager of Uplight stated of the investment from Octopus, "This is a new chapter for Uplight as we build on our critical capacity services for our utility customers." Battery Asset Management Summit USA 2026 will be held 15-16 September in Garden Grove, California, hosted by Energy-Storage.news publisher Solar Media (part of the Informa Group). The agenda emphasises addressing the roles of AI, cybersecurity, and second-life applications, broken down into two tracks: Technical Asset Management and Commercial Asset Management. This year, the conference is also co-located with Solar & Storage Finance Summit USA. Visit the official site for more details. 8 September 2026 Barcelona, Spain Battery & Energy Storage Tech Europe (BESTE) is Europe's industrial scaling platform for stationary and industrial battery applications - not EVs. Taking place 8-9 September 2026 at Fira de Barcelona, BESTE brings together utilities, IPPs, energy-intensive industries, data centres, ports, rail, maritime, defence and aerospace OEMs - all deploying or integrating battery storage at scale. Over 100 companies already confirmed - including EDP Renewables, Acciona, Endesa, Naturgy, Neoen, Galp, Basquevolt and Veolia - alongside 40+ expert speakers and international institutional support from BEPA, BVES, LDES and Volta Foundation. Where Europe's battery & ES ecosystem turns projects into reality. 15 September 2026 San Diego, USA You can expect to meet and network with all the key industry players again in 2025 from major US asset owners, operators, RTOs and ISOs, optimizers, software and analytics providers, technical consultancies, O&M technology providers and more. 15 September 2026 Berlin, Germany Launching September 2026 in Berlin, Energy Storage Summit Germany is a new standalone event dedicated to Germany's energy storage market. Bringing together investors, developers, policymakers, TSOs, manufacturers and optimisation specialists, the Summit explores the regulatory shifts, revenue models, financing strategies and technology innovations shaping large-scale deployment. With Germany targeting 80% renewables by 2030, it offers a focused platform to connect with the decision-makers driving the Energiewende and the future of utility-scale storage. 13 October 2026 London, UK Now in its second edition, the Summit provides a dedicated platform for UK & Ireland's BESS community to share practical insights on performance, degradation, safety, market design and optimisation strategies. As storage deployment accelerates towards 2030 targets, attendees gain the tools needed to enhance returns and operate resilient, efficient assets.