Senior Staff Applications Engineer - Spark

About the Role

We are seeking a Senior Staff Applications Engineer to own how Spark answers the question of technical fit. You will build and maintain the evaluation framework that determines whether a site, partnership, or commercial opportunity is viable for the Spark modular data center (MDC) and Spark-Liquid (DLC) product lines, and you will support the Energy Development Group (EDG), business development, and partner teams as they apply it.

When an opportunity is undefined, unconventional, or contested, you are the Spark team's point of contact, the person who answers the hard product questions and delivers the technical verdict.

Spark is on a path to deploy hundreds of megawatts of modular capacity, and every megawatt of it begins as an unqualified site on a map. Your judgment about where this product can be applied, not the design of the product itself, is what converts that pipeline into deployable capacity.

What You'll Be Working On: Product Authority & Opportunity Qualification

• Qualification Framework: Build and maintain the standardized screening criteria, scoring model, decision thresholds, and report format that define what makes a site or opportunity viable for Spark deployments. Keep it current as the product roadmap evolves, and keep a record of past calls and their rationale.
• Team Enablement: Equip EDG, business development, and partner teams to apply the framework themselves on standard opportunities. Train, document, and iterate so routine qualification does not depend on a single point of failure, you.
• Escalated Technical Judgment: Serve as the Spark team's point of contact for opportunities the framework cannot resolve, including undefined sites, non-standard configurations, and contested calls. Deliver a clear fit, conditional fit, or no-fit verdict with the engineering rationale behind it.
• Speed Discipline: Turn around escalated feasibility assessments in days, not weeks. Frame the problem tightly enough that deeper analysis, when required, lands on the respective engineering discipline ready to be worked.
• Deviation & Exception Management: Identify where an opportunity requires deviation from the standard Spark configuration, quantify the engineering cost and schedule impact, and route it to the responsible engineering discipline for disposition.
• New Application Assessment: Evaluate technical fit for non-standard applications such as edge deployments, distributed energy assets, co-located industrial sites, and third-party colocation and shell-rent arrangements, and define what the product would need to change to serve them.
• Roadmap Feedback Loop: Feed recurring field constraints back to Spark design engineering and R&D as prioritized product requirements. You are the closed loop between what the market presents and what the product can absorb.

Site & Partner Engagement

• EDG Partnership: Serve as Spark's dedicated technical counterpart to the Energy Development Group across the full site pipeline, from initial screen through definitive agreement.
• Spark Fit Assessment: Evaluate candidate sites and opportunities against Spark module requirements, covering power, thermal, civil, and physical interface, and define what the site must deliver at the module boundary.
• Field Validation: Conduct site walks alongside EDG, developers, and utility counterparties, converting observations into Spark product requirements and a maintained risk register.

Technical Communication & Diligence

• Diligence Support: Provide the technical inputs that Finance requires to model an opportunity, including module configuration, power and cooling assumptions, and site-specific efficiency and derate factors.
• Executive Communication: Translate multi-discipline engineering tradeoffs into clear go/no-go decision frameworks for commercial and executive stakeholders.

What You'll Bring to the Team

• Professional Experience: 10+ years of progressive engineering experience spanning data center infrastructure, power generation or utility interconnection, industrial capital projects, or modular and containerized systems.
• Broad Engineering Fluency: Working fluency across data center infrastructure disciplines including electrical (MV/LV distribution, switchgear, transformers), mechanical/thermal (DLC, CDUs, heat rejection), and civil/structural (foundations, seismic/wind loading, rigging).
• First-Principles Decision Making: Track record of making feasibility calls from first principles under incomplete information, with direct accountability for recommendations carrying real capital consequences.
• Technical Counterparty Credibility: Proven ability to hold technical credibility with external developers, utilities, enterprise customers, and executives while keeping opportunities moving rapidly.
• Unit Economics Command: Ability to connect engineering decisions directly to $/MW, capex, PUE, and deployment schedules.
• Product Authority Track Record: Demonstrated depth on a specific engineered product or platform, where you were the person others relied on for an authoritative answer on capabilities and limits.
• Mountaineer Spirit: Relentless technical rigor, comfort with ambiguity, a safety-first culture, the judgment to say no early, and the discipline to make calls when perfect information is unavailable.
• Education: Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, or a closely related engineering discipline.

Bonus Points

• Experience with modular, containerized, or prefabricated infrastructure product lines.
• Familiarity with agency certification and AHJ coordination for modular electrical equipment across varied jurisdictions.
• Deep familiarity with energy development, interconnection processes/queues, and behind-the-meter site configurations.

This Role Is Not a Good Fit If

• You prefer purely theoretical design work over applied, rapid feasibility assessments.
• You require complete data and fully finalized engineering designs before making a technical recommendation.
• You struggle to communicate complex engineering tradeoffs to commercial partners or executive stakeholders.

Benefits

• Competitive compensation and equity packages
• Restricted Stock Units
• Paid time off, paid holidays & leave of absence programs
• Comprehensive health, dental & vision insurance
• Employer contributions to HSA account
• Paid parental leave
• Paid life insurance, short-term and long-term disability
• Professional development & tuition reimbursement
• Mental health & wellness support
• Commuter benefits (parking & transit)
• Cell phone stipend
• 401(k) Retirement plan with company match up to 4% of salary
• Volunteer time off
• Global travel insurance & emergency assistance
• Daily meals allowance
• Additional perks & programs specific to location

Compensation Range

Compensation will be paid in the range of up to $190,000-$215,000 + Bonus. Restricted Stock Units are included in all offers. Compensation to be determined by the applicant's knowledge, education, and abilities, as well as internal equity and alignment with market data.