VP / Director of Engineering

The Vice President / Director of Engineering will serve as a founding team member and strategic partner to the CEO, leading the architecture of Expand’s technical stack and defining the next generation of power electronics for the grid. As a core member of the founding leadership team, the VP will shape Expand’s technical priorities through immediate pilots and deployment, ensuring customers receive a high performance, reliable, product.

This role is critical to Expand’s success- you will be working closely with the founding team and in the field with real customers, reporting to the CEO. In this role, you’ll set technical requirements and ensure customer functionality is translated into complex technical goals. You’ll be deeply hands-on and in the weeds while also leading the technology roadmap and progress. You will guide technical development of our proprietary power electronics technology for immediate deployment while interfacing with customers. You will have a critical role in shaping the core technology, product direction, and culture of a cross-functional and rapidly growing early stage company. You’ll be one of the most valuable founding members of a company shaping the future of the electric grid. In doing so, you will push the limits of what’s achievable with high-frequency power electronics and grid modernization, * Leverage deep expertise in power electronics to understand complex customer needs, set and lead the technical roadmap, and execute while adhering to regulatory requirements

• Lead the development and evolution of Expand’s technical stack, aligning customer demand, industry trends, and operational capabilities in direct partnership with the CEO
• Act as the technical point of contact for customers, translating requirements into engineering tasks
• Define and oversee operational excellence for Expand’s technical spaces, ensuring a safe, high-quality, and consistent user experience
• Lead and scale the technical team, fostering a culture of accountability, collaboration, and continuous improvement
• Support business development efforts to bring new customers
• Provide strategic technical insight to inform Expand’s broader growth, partnership, and capital planning decisions
• Architect the technical narratives for capital formation efforts alongside the CEO, including input for grants, funding, and early commercial partnerships
• Contribute as a core member of the founding team to define and institutionalize Expand’s mission, values, safety standards, and internal operating systems
• Represent Expand in select industry, government, and customer-facing forums
• Maintain alignment of technical standards and customer experience
• Partner with the CEO to forecast hiring needs aligned with customer demand and program growth

Hands on Engineering

• Lead the development of power conversion systems from first principles to deployment for manufacturability and flexibility
• Document technical specifications, architecture decisions, and validation reports
• Simulate, model, and design circuits and converters to maximize performance and reliability, as needed

You have deep power electronics expertise, with a proven ability to scale a product from inception to manufacturing while building a powerful team. You’ve done this before: you are a highly experienced electrical engineering leader, a master of your craft. Guiding hardware development is your bread and butter, but it still gives you excitement and fulfillment, especially with a mission you care deeply about. You have a proven track record of driving and implementing innovation and R&D for commercialization.

You also have experience in

• Leadership in power electronics and hardware design with demonstrated experience advancing new technologies and products toward manufacturing
• Building multi-disciplinary power electronics teams
• Architecting multi-year technical roadmaps aligned with commercialization timelines, customer demand, and operational capabilities in a founding-stage, high-growth, or innovation-driven organization
• Bringing a product to market while meeting certification standards and regulations
• Technical consulting or customer-facing roles, with the ability to translate ambiguous research goals into precise commercialization steps
• Strong relationship building and communication skills, with the ability to build trust across technical teams, customers, and senior stakeholders ranging from academic researchers to industry experts
• Startups or fast-paced, early stage company environments
• High frequency and high power converters, including modular multilevel converters, resonant converters, or MVDC distribution
• Fluency in Altium and/or KiCad, ANSYS, Spice, PLECS, PSIM, * Medium voltage power electronics and operation
• DERs and/or inverter product development
• Knowledge of relevant industry standards (UL 1741, etc)
• Overseeing or operating technical laboratory, prototyping, or shared infrastructure environments with rigorous attention to safety (EH&S), resource allocation, and operational efficiency, * Fast moving, hands-on builder, taking responsibility for outcomes from design through deployment and hungry for ownership
• Independent, gritty problem solver, who thrives in uncertainty, loves a challenge, and responds to obstacles with the best of their abilities
• Strong and collaborative communicator, able to explain technical decisions to both engineers and non-technical stakeholders, and to share feedback openly and kindly
• Mission-driven, motivated by positive real-world impact and passionate about pushing the boundaries of power electronics and electrification
• Fearless and endlessly curious, energized by open questions and new possibilities, willing to bet on bold ideas and learn fast from what the hardware tells you, and taking intelligent risks with a sense of wonder and a drive to explore what’s possible

We want you to stay for a while- you will receive $175,000 - $225,000 base with meaningful early employee equity, based on level and experience, as well as benefits:

• Health Insurance: We offer 100% coverage of employee premiums
• Dental & Vision Insurance: We offer 100% coverage of employee premiums