Application Guide

How to Apply for Optimization Engineer

at Intersect Power

🏢 About Intersect Power

Intersect Power is a mission-driven company focused on scalable low-carbon solutions for retail and wholesale energy markets, offering clean electricity and fuels. Their remote-first culture and emphasis on innovation in optimization and AI make them an exciting place for engineers passionate about combating climate change through technology.

About This Role

As an Optimization Engineer, you will design and maintain production code for optimization, bidding, and forecasting workflows, directly impacting the efficiency and profitability of clean energy assets. Your work will involve building orchestration frameworks for parallelization and reliability, and incorporating uncertainty and risk into algorithms, making this role critical to Intersect Power's mission.

💡 A Day in the Life

You'll start by reviewing the performance of overnight optimization runs and addressing any alerts. Mid-morning, you might pair with a data scientist to refine a forecasting model, then spend the afternoon refactoring a bidding algorithm to improve reliability. Your day ends with a code review and planning for the next sprint's optimization improvements.

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Interview Prep

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🎯 Who Intersect Power Is Looking For

  • Experienced in formulating and solving LP, MILP, and nonlinear optimization problems in production environments (5+ years).
  • Proficient with solvers like Gurobi or CPLEX and modeling frameworks like Pyomo or JuMP.
  • A technical leader who can guide system architecture decisions and mentor junior engineers.
  • Skilled in production code, continuous deployment, and designing for scalability and reliability.

📝 Tips for Applying to Intersect Power

1

Highlight specific optimization projects you've deployed in production, including the solvers and frameworks used.

2

Quantify the impact of your work (e.g., cost savings, efficiency gains, or improved forecasting accuracy).

3

Demonstrate your experience with parallelization and reproducibility by mentioning orchestration tools like Airflow or Prefect.

4

Showcase your ability to incorporate uncertainty and risk into algorithms, perhaps with stochastic optimization or probabilistic forecasting examples.

5

Tailor your resume to include keywords like Gurobi, Pyomo, LP/MILP, and production deployment to pass ATS filters.

✉️ What to Emphasize in Your Cover Letter

['Your passion for clean energy and how your optimization skills can help Intersect Power scale low-carbon solutions.', "Specific examples of production-grade optimization systems you've built and maintained.", 'Your experience balancing algorithm performance with interpretability in uncertain environments.', 'Your ability to provide technical leadership and guide data architecture decisions.']

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🔍 Research Before Applying

To stand out, make sure you've researched:

  • → Study Intersect Power's current projects in clean electricity and fuels, especially their approach to energy storage and renewable integration.
  • → Read their blog or news section to understand their market strategy and recent milestones.
  • → Familiarize yourself with the wholesale energy markets they operate in (e.g., CAISO, ERCOT) and common optimization challenges there.
  • → Review any publicly available technical talks or papers from their engineering team.

💬 Prepare for These Interview Topics

Based on this role, you may be asked about:

1 Describe a time you optimized a bidding strategy under uncertainty. How did you model the risk?
2 Walk us through your process for deploying an optimization model to production, including testing and monitoring.
3 How do you choose between different solvers and modeling frameworks for a given problem?
4 Explain a complex optimization problem you solved and how you ensured its scalability.
5 How do you incorporate probabilistic forecasts into deterministic optimization models?
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⚠️ Common Mistakes to Avoid

  • Focusing only on academic optimization without demonstrating production deployment experience.
  • Overlooking the importance of interpretability and business context in your optimization solutions.
  • Neglecting to mention experience with parallelization, reproducibility, or orchestration frameworks.

📅 Application Timeline

This position is open until filled. However, we recommend applying as soon as possible as roles at mission-driven organizations tend to fill quickly.

Typical hiring timeline:

1

Application Review

1-2 weeks

2

Initial Screening

Phone call or written assessment

3

Interviews

1-2 rounds, usually virtual

✓

Offer

Congratulations!

Ready to Apply?

Good luck with your application to Intersect Power!

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