Software Validation Engineer, Opticaster

What to Expect

Opticaster’s mission is to accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy by optimizing how batteries are charged and discharged to maximize value for customers and the grid. Our algorithms power Tesla’s energy products—including Powerwalls, Megapacks, Virtual Power Plants, and microgrids—across a global fleet.

Opticaster is a customer-facing product: the software you build directly shapes how hundreds of thousands of homes and energy sites store, use, and export energy every day. As a Software Validation Engineer, you will partner with algorithm engineers throughout the development cycle to accelerate testing and ensure our products meet the highest quality standards. You will own and drive the development of scalable, AI-driven test automation that continuously validates our cutting-edge energy storage systems.

What You’ll Do

• Own and drive scalable, AI-driven test automation that continuously validates Opticaster software
• Partner with algorithm and software engineers to develop automated tests and accelerate validation throughout the development cycle
• Run and expand large-scale cloud simulations that produce clear pass/fail evidence before changes reach customers
• Implement automated checks and improve validation tooling in Python for test execution, result analysis, failure triage, and reporting
• Integrate validation into CI/CD so checks run reliably as part of normal development and release
• Investigate failures, identify root causes, and work with partners to resolve issues before they reach customers
• Support device-level testing when simulation alone is not sufficient to cover risk
• Communicate validation results clearly so the team can make confident ship decisions

What You’ll Bring

• Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science, or related engineering field, or equivalent experience
• Strong proficiency in Python
• Experience testing, simulating, or evaluating software systems—or a clear ability to ramp into that work quickly
• Experience writing automated tests or checks and turning results into actionable pass/fail decisions
• Practical experience using AI tools to improve engineering workflows (analysis, automation, reporting, triage)
• Strong debugging skills and comfort with ambiguous failures until root cause is clear
• Excellent communication skills and the ability to partner closely with algorithm and software engineers
• Experience with cloud batch jobs, CI, containers, or orchestration (e.g. Docker, AWS, Kubernetes/Argo) is a plus
• Experience with energy systems, control software, time-series evaluation, or optimization workflows is a plus
• Experience building internal tooling adopted by a team is a plus