AI Controls Solutions Engineer (North America)

20 days ago
Full time role
Remote... more

About Phaidra

Phaidra is building the future of industrial automation.

The world today is filled with static, monolithic infrastructure. Factories, power plants, buildings, etc. operate the same they've operated for decades — because the controls programming is hard-coded. Thousands of lines of rules and heuristics that define how the machines interact with each other. The result of all this hard-coding is that facilities are frozen in time, unable to adapt to their environment while their performance slowly degrades.

Phaidra creates AI-powered control systems for the industrial sector, enabling industrial facilities to automatically learn and improve over time. Specifically:

  • We use reinforcement learning algorithms to provide this intelligence, converting raw sensor data into high-value actions and decisions.
  • We focus on industrial applications, which tend to be well-sensorized with measurable KPIs — perfect for reinforcement learning.
  • We enable domain experts (our users) to configure the AI control systems (i.e. agents) without writing code. They define what they want their AI agents to do, and we do it for them.

Our team has a track record of applying AI to some of the toughest problems. From achieving superhuman performance with DeepMind's AlphaGo, to reducing the energy required to cool Google's Data Centers by 40%, we deeply understand AI and how to apply it in production for massive impact.

Phaidra’s ability to achieve its mission is determined by our ability to work together — as defined by our core values: Transparency, Collaboration, Operational Excellence, Ownership, and Empathy. We seek individuals who embody these values, as they are instrumental in ensuring our team consistently delivers excellence and fosters an engaging and supportive culture

Phaidra is based in the USA but 100% remote; we do not have a physical office. We hire employees internationally with the help of our partner, OysterHR. Our team is currently located throughout the USA, Canada, UK, Norway, Italy, Sweden, Spain, Portugal, Japan, Singapore, and India.

Who You Are

As an AI Controls Solutions Engineer, you'll play a critical role in operationalizing and scaling Phaidra's solutions for enterprise data center customers.

Responsibilities

You will work closely with the Technical Account Managers (TAMs) and Data Scientists, as the technical experts for Phaidra's customers. Your role is to use Phaidra's platform and tools to put AI into production.

This role can be broken down into two concrete areas of responsibility:

  • As the subject matter expert, (SME), you will use Phaidra’s products and your knowledge of the customers' needs to create a model of the facility for ingestion by the AI Agent. This will require working closely with our AI research and machine learning application engineering teams as they create the algorithms that turn sensor data into actionable insights. You will work closely with Phaidra's customers to help them get the most out of our technologies, crisply defining the AI problem (objective function, actions, constraints), understanding the technology's capabilities and limitations, identifying opportunities for value creation, and rapidly deploying solutions to production using Phaidra's platform and tools.
  • You will work with the product team to identify and define product requirements based upon each customer’s specification and needs. You will work closely with other AI Controls Solutions Engineers and the Product team to ensure our automated tools enable Phaidra to scale across thousands of customers.

*This role can include 25% travel

Key Qualifications

  • Knowledge of chiller plant fundamentals, configurations, and sequence of operations.
  • Understanding of applied thermodynamics for cooling systems, refrigeration systems, and hydronics.
  • Experience in controls design engineering, or strong working knowledge of industrial and commercial control systems and protocols such as BACnet and Modbus.
  • Experience programming control systems with PLC, ladder logic, text, or block programming languages.
  • Deep understanding of data center specific controls and cooling methodologies.
  • Understanding the applications and control strategies of air side chilled water and direct expansion cooling systems.
  • Strong proficiency in working with data center operations teams and contributing to solving field operations related problems and challenges.
  • Ability to analyze the performance and viability of your engineered solutions.
  • Passion for problem solving and using scalable solutions to solve repeat problems.
  • Ability to translate a combination of customer-stated and customer-implied needs into coherent needs documentation for use by the software development team.
  • Good educational background in one or more related disciplines pertinent to your area of expertise. Example disciplines include Mechanical Engineering, Computer Science, Software Engineering, Control Theory, Applied Mathematics and other various engineering and applied science fields.
  • Ability to read and write Python scripts (in collaboration with the software engineering team) to implement Phaidra's AI development tool for customer use cases.
  • Excellent communication skills. Ability to explain complex domain specific concepts to non-domain experts and also explain complex AI and ML specific concepts to non-AI/ML specific customers.
  • Shares our company values: curiosity, transparency & directness, outcome-based performance, and customer empathy.

Helpful Skills & Experience

  • Experience using scrum and agile methodologies.
  • Experience with rapidly prototyping new technologies and converting into commercially viable products.
  • Experience building, owning, and operating your own codebases/services.
  • Experience architecting services within cloud platforms.
  • Experience applying AI and ML in controls applications.
  • Experience with statistics, analytics, etc.
  • Experience with domain relevant optimization problems and solutions.
  • Familiarity with markup languages like Xml, Json, or Yaml.

Onboarding

In your first 30 days...

  • You will have a solid understanding of what Phaidra does and how we do it.
  • You will have met with team members across Phaidra and started building relationships that will help you be successful at your job.
  • You will have become proficient at navigating the Customer Success team’s processes and software tools.

By your first 60 days...

  • You will introduce yourself to our customers
  • You will understand our customer onboarding process
  • You will dig into Atlas, our project workflow tool
  • You will build a toy system from scratch

By your first 90 days...

  • You will participate in troubleshooting issues
  • You will participate in customer onboarding and new system creation
  • You will contribute to code repository
  • You will create and refine business processes
  • You will attend site visits

General Interview Process

All of our interviews are held via Google Meet, and an active camera connection is required.

  1. Initial screening interview with a People Operations team member (30 minutes)
  2. Meeting with the Hiring Manager (45 minutes)
  3. Meeting with Technical Accounts Manager (30 minutes)
  4. Meeting with the Director of AI and Control Engineering (60 minutes)
  5. Culture fit interview with Phaidra’s co-founders (30 minutes)

Base Salary Range

  • US Residents: $85,600-$206,400/year
  • Canada Residents: CA$103,200-CA$207,600

This position will also include equity.

This is a best faith estimate of the base salary range for this position. Multiple factors such as experience, education, level, and location are taken into account when determining compensation.

Benefits & Perks

  • Fast-paced and team-oriented environment where you will be instrumental in the direction of the company.
  • Phaidra is a 100% remote company with a digital nomad policy.
  • Competitive compensation & equity.
  • Outsized responsibilities & professional development.
  • Training is foundational; functional, customer immersion, and development training.
  • Medical, dental, and vision insurance (exact benefits vary by region).
  • Unlimited paid time off, with a minimum of 20 days off per year requirement.
  • Paid parental leave (exact benefits vary by region).
  • Home office setup allowance, coworking space stipend, and company MacBook.

*Please note that Phaidra’s benefits and perks listed above do not apply to temporary employees such as interns.

On being Remote

We are thoughtful about remote collaboration. We look to the pioneers - like Gitlab - for inspiration and best practices to create a stellar remote work environment. We have a documentation-first culture and actively practice asynchronous communication in everything we do. Our team stays connected through tools like Slack and video chat. Most teams meet daily, and we have dedicated all-hands meetings weekly to build strong relationships. We hold virtual team building events once per quarter - and even hold virtual socials to watch rocket launches! We have had all-company summits in locations like Seattle, Athens, Goa, and Barcelona.

Equal Opportunity Employment

Phaidra is an Equal Opportunity Employer; employment with Phaidra is governed on the basis of merit, competence, and qualifications and will not be influenced in any manner by race, color, religion, gender, national origin/ethnicity, veteran status, disability status, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, mental or physical disability, or any other legally protected status. We welcome diversity and strive to maintain an inclusive environment for all employees. If you need assistance with completing the application process, please contact us at hiring@phaidra.ai.

E-Verify Notice

Phaidra participates in E-Verify, an employment authorization database provided through the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Social Security Administration (SSA). As required by law, we will provide the SSA and, if necessary, the DHS, with information from each new employee’s Form I-9 to confirm work authorization for those residing in the United States.

Additional information about E-Verify can be found here.

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WE DO NOT ACCEPT APPLICATIONS FROM RECRUITERS.