VP Engineering

The Role

Sahana Energy is building the optimization engine for clean, self-sufficient data centre campuses. Today, data centres are typically passive consumers of power. We are changing that by building a platform that takes campuses from concept to fully energized and optimized.

As our VP Engineering, you will own the design, build, and deployment of the development across active European markets. This is a founding, hands-on leadership role. You won’t just be managing a roadmap; you will be architecting a system that interacts with physical infrastructure and volatile energy markets in real time. You will work in lockstep with the Director of Power Systems to ensure the physical hardware—fuel cells, BESS, renewables and thermal systems—is digitally transparent and responsive to our optimization logic.

Location: London (with site travel as required). Reports to: Executive Leadership Team.

Key Responsibilities

1. Architectural Ownership & Kyros Development

• System Architecture: Own the end-to-end architecture across optimization engines, high-frequency telemetry, and control systems.
• The Hardware-Software Bridge: Work closely with the Director of Power Systems and site engineers to integrate the platform into live environments, ensuring the system performs reliably across hardware and market interfaces.
• Founding Execution: Set the technical direction and roadmap, using modern, AI-enabled workflows to ship the platform quickly against ambitious milestones.
• Pragmatic Choices: Make technology choices that balance immediate speed with long-term scalability, favoring simple cloud-based systems over unnecessary complexity.

2. Team Leadership & Culture

• Build the Squad: Recruit, mentor, and lead a high-performing engineering team that thrives in a fast-moving, low-overhead environment.
• Lead by Doing: Maintain a high bar for technical quality by staying close to the code; you are comfortable getting hands-on across the stack, from optimization logic to debugging industrial interfaces.
• Operational Integration: Serve as the primary "integrator" between technical, commercial, and infrastructure teams, translating complex market requirements into reliable software.

3. Real-World Optimization & Markets

• Market Interaction: Design and operate systems that execute trades and determine power strategies across capacity, day-ahead, and real-time energy markets.
• Asset Modeling: Develop and refine models for battery energy storage systems (BESS), generation forecasts, and load-balancing scenarios.
• Data Integrity: Manage high-frequency time series data and telemetry, dealing with the "messiness" of real-world asset integration.

The Profile: The Entrepreneurial Integrator

• Track Record: You have a proven history of building and operating complex production systems where software interacts directly with physical assets or markets.
• Sector Expertise: Deep experience with power system models, energy simulations, or electricity trading systems.
• The "Founding" Mindset: You are a delivery-focused leader who prioritizes what matters and avoids over-engineering.
• AI-Native: You use modern AI tools in your day-to-day workflow to accelerate development and reduce toil.
• Systems Thinker: You can operate across technical and commercial domains, ensuring the "optimization engine" creates real-world financial value.