Flexible Controls Software Engineer Jobs in Chicago, IL

Benefits

• Warrants
• Annual bonus
• 401(k)
• 401(k) matching
• Competitive salary
• Health insurance
• Paid time off

Fleet Software & Controls Engineering Lead

Full Time | Hybrid | Chicago Metro Area

Build the software layer that operates and optimizes a distributed battery fleet.

Intelligent Generation’s mission is to empower businesses to engage the clean energy grid.

Intelligent Generation builds and operates POWR:Suite, a software platform that helps battery energy storage assets make highly profitable economic decisions.

POWR:Suite connects distributed energy assets to wholesale power markets while also optimizing behind-the-meter value: reducing utility bills, managing demand charges, improving asset performance, supporting resilience, and helping customers capture the full economic value of their energy assets.

Our work sits at the intersection of energy markets, grid operations, virtual power plants, customer savings, software automation, telemetry, and AI‑assisted decision‑making.

We are looking for a software engineering leader to own and scale the fleet software and controls‑adjacent application layer of POWR:Suite. This is a leadership role. You will be hands‑on early, but the expectation is that you will grow into leading engineers, shaping architecture, and orchestrating AI agents that support software delivery, testing, documentation, monitoring, and operational workflows.

Why this role matters POWR:Suite operates in the real world. The software affects physical assets, market participation, customer bills, demand charge outcomes, operator decisions, asset performance, resilience, and revenue confidence.

As IG scales, we need fleet software that makes economic decisions more repeatable, explainable, observable, and optimized across market and customer‑side value streams.

You will help build that layer.

What you will lead and own Fleet operations software

Lead the software services that support dispatch, state‑of‑charge management, availability, asset readiness, market participation, customer bill optimization, demand charge management, resilience use cases, and operational decision‑making across a growing BESS fleet.

Operator applications

Own the tools operators and field teams use every day: control panels, fleet dashboards, workflow tools, alerts, status views, exception handling, and operational decision support.

Event‑driven services

Design and operate the service layer that moves telemetry, commands, statuses, and operational events across POWR:Suite. Build for reliability, observability, ordering, failure recovery, and real‑world operating conditions.

Controls‑adjacent software

Develop deep fluency in how software decisions affect physical asset behavior and economic outcomes. Partner across controls, operations, and platform teams to make fleet behavior safer, clearer, and more repeatable.

Economic decisioning workflows

Build software that helps determine when assets should charge, discharge, preserve state of charge, participate in market programs, reduce customer demand charges, or support resilience needs.

Commissioning and configuration workflows

Build software that reduces manual steps in asset onboarding, configuration, commissioning, testing, and readiness tracking.

Software agents

Build, maintain, evaluate, and govern agents that support software delivery and operations, including code review agents, test agents, regression agents, documentation agents, commissioning support agents, and operator workflow assistants.

People and agent orchestration

Over time, build and lead a software engineering function. Define how engineers and agents work together to improve delivery speed, review quality, test coverage, documentation, operational support, and system reliability.

What success looks like First 90 days

• Understand POWR:Suite’s current fleet software, dispatch workflows, operator tools, economic decisioning logic, and controls‑adjacent processes
• Own a defined improvement in the fleet or operator workflow
• Document key system flows, dependencies, decision points, and failure modes
• Identify high‑value agent‑assisted opportunities in development, testing, operations, or operator support

First 6 months

• Take primary ownership of selected fleet software services or operator applications
• Improve usability, reliability, and observability of dispatch‑related workflows
• Build tools that reduce manual operational steps
• Deploy or improve agents that assist with code review, testing, documentation, commissioning, or operator support

First 12 months

• Lead the software function for fleet operations and controls‑adjacent applications
• Reduce dependency on tribal knowledge by codifying workflows, tests, and operational logic
• Improve the scalability and resilience of POWR:Suite’s fleet software layer
• Build the foundation for a team that can scale software delivery with agent leverage

What we are looking for Required

• 8+ years in software engineering, systems engineering, full‑stack engineering, back‑end engineering, or controls‑adjacent software
• Experience leading technical work across teams or mentoring engineers
• Strong Python experience in production systems
• Experience building APIs, services, event‑driven systems, and operational applications
• Experience with real‑time, high‑reliability, hardware‑adjacent, industrial, or operational software
• Ability to build practical internal tools for operators, field teams, or technical users
• Strong debugging instincts across software, data, infrastructure, and system behavior
• Hands‑on experience using AI tools as part of engineering work
• Ability to build, maintain, evaluate, govern, or orchestrate agents that support engineering and operational workflows
• Strong curiosity about physical systems and how software affects real‑world and economic outcomes

Strongly preferred

• GCP experience, especially Cloud Run, Pub/Sub, Cloud SQL, or similar managed services
• Experience with WebSockets, real‑time dashboards, event streams, or operational interfaces
• BESS, SCADA, EMS, DER, energy management, inverter, or industrial controls exposure
• Familiarity with DNP3, Modbus, ICCP, or similar protocols
• Familiarity with LabVIEW
• Experience with state machines, deterministic logic, simulation, or control‑adjacent systems
• Experience building or leading a software engineering team

Why this is exciting

You will build software that matters in the physical world and in the customer’s economics. Your work will help IG operate a growing distributed energy fleet, improve market participation, reduce customer bills, manage demand charges, support resilience, reduce operational drag, and turn complex energy workflows into scalable software and agent‑assisted execution.

This is a hybrid position and will require remote and in‑person (Oak Brook/Chicago) work.

Intelligent Generation participates in the E-Verify process for all new hires.

Flexible work from home options available.