AI engineer

Gridium • Chicago, IL

4d • Hybrid

About The Position

Gridium helps commercial building owners cut energy use and carbon emissions. We are a profitable, venture-backed company with real customers, real data, and real energy savings. Now we're launching a new AI-powered product line—and we're looking for a founding engineer to help build it.
The opportunity
This is a unique opportunity to have a major impact: you'll own a greenfield product initiative while benefiting from an established customer base and a decade of operational building data. You'll work directly with a company founder to ship a v1 this year, going from concept to prototype to production to iteration.
This position is based in Chicago. We have a hybrid structure that flexibly combines remote work with in-person collaboration.
Our technical stack is primarily Python and AWS, but there is plenty of room to shape the architecture as we go.
Most people are aware that data centers use a lot of electricity. Fewer realize that data centers represent only a small sliver of the energy footprint of buildings in general, which account for ~40% of global carbon emissions. Much of that energy is wasted. We're working on the problem because it matters, and we’ve been growing faster than ever as demand for genuine energy solutions increases.

Requirements

• A track record of defining milestones, shipping production software, and taking responsibility for results.
• Strong engineering fundamentals: system design, code reviews, test coverage, CI/CD, all the things.
• Clear written communication: specs, decision records, and crisp technical explanations.
• You are excited about the current moment in AI and you've been building with it, not just reading about it. You're fluent with AI coding tools, understand their capabilities and limitations, and bring a learning mindset to the rapidly shifting technology landscape.
• You are comfortable owning technical decisions and bringing a critical perspective on technical cost and feasibility to questions of product strategy.
• You thrive in a collaborative environment where we share ideas openly and respectfully, and work with creativity and purpose.
• You must currently reside in the U.S. and have the legal right to work here.

Responsibilities

• Build and ship AI-powered features from prototype to production.
• Evaluate and integrate frontier models and tools.
• Design eval frameworks for monitoring and improving system quality.
• Develop agent architectures that balance reliability with autonomy.
• Work across the stack—primarily backend, with some frontend as needed.
• Collaborate closely with product and customers to shape what we build.

Benefits

• competitive salary
• equity
• 401(k) with match
• premium medical, dental, vision, life, and disability insurance
• generous parental leave
• flexible vacation
• a great work environment

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Mid Level
• Education Level: No Education Listed
• Number of Employees: 11-50 employees