Senior Optimization Engineer

Verse • San Francisco, CA

1d • Hybrid

About The Position

Verse is seeking an experienced Senior Optimization Engineer to join their Data Science Team. This role involves leading the design, development, and deployment of optimization models that power the company's software platform for applications such as electricity markets, renewable energy, and battery energy storage systems. The engineer will be responsible for creating production-grade optimization engines to solve complex operational and planning problems at scale. The position requires deep expertise in mathematical optimization, strong Python software engineering skills, and experience integrating optimization models with production systems. Prior experience in the energy industry, especially with electricity markets and battery storage optimization, is highly valued. The role emphasizes technical leadership, ownership of complex optimization projects, and collaboration with engineering, product, and commercial teams to deliver impactful optimization solutions.

Requirements

• 5+ years of professional experience developing mathematical optimization models in production environments
• Demonstrated experience independently leading complex optimization projects from formulation through deployment
• Professional experience developing production software in Python
• Experience deploying optimization models into scalable production systems
• Professional experience in the energy industry is required
• Master's degree or higher in Operations Research, Industrial Engineering, Applied Mathematics, Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, or a related quantitative field. A bachelor's degree with significant relevant experience may also be considered.

Nice To Haves

• Experience with battery energy storage optimization is strongly preferred
• Experience optimizing battery energy storage systems in wholesale electricity markets
• Knowledge of market optimization problems involving ISO/RTO markets (CAISO, ERCOT, PJM, MISO, NYISO, ISO-NE, etc.)
• Familiarity with stochastic optimization, robust optimization, or multi-stage optimization methods
• Experience developing optimization services for real-time or operational decision support systems
• Experience mentoring engineers or leading technical projects
• PhD in Operations Research, Applied Mathematics, Industrial Engineering, or a related quantitative discipline

Responsibilities

• Lead the development of optimization solutions from mathematical formulation through production deployment.
• Translate business requirements into scalable optimization models and implement them as robust, maintainable Python software.
• Design reusable optimization frameworks and services that integrate seamlessly into Verse's cloud platform and support long-term product development.
• Design and implement mathematical optimization models using linear, mixed-integer, quadratic, and related optimization techniques.
• Formulate robust models for scheduling, dispatch, planning, and operational decision-making, and improve solver performance through model reformulation, decomposition methods, warm starts, heuristics, and parameter tuning to ensure scalable, production-ready optimization solutions.
• Develop optimization models for electricity markets, battery energy storage systems, renewable energy assets, and other distributed energy resources.
• Translate market rules and operational constraints into mathematically rigorous optimization formulations.
• Write clean, well-tested, and maintainable Python code following modern software engineering best practices.
• Contribute to architecture decisions, testing frameworks, CI/CD pipelines, and deployment of optimization services.
• Partner closely with product managers, software engineers, data scientists, and commercial stakeholders to understand business requirements and deliver optimization capabilities that integrate into customer-facing products.
• Mentor junior engineers, establish best practices for optimization modeling and software development, conduct code reviews, and help shape the technical direction of Verse's optimization platform.

Benefits

• Competitive compensation and equity grant at a high-growth start up
• Comprehensive benefits package including medical, dental and vision insurance, and 401k
• Flexible hours and unlimited PTO
• Diverse and inclusive working environment

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior