Base Power Company

Software Engineer, Backend at Base Power Company (Austin, TX)

Base Power Company· Austin, TX·

Role details

Work type
Onsite
Employment
Full-Time
Skills
GolangPythonDistributed SystemsAWSTerraformDockerKubernetesInfrastructure as CodeIoT systemsReal-time control systemsWorkflow orchestrationDevOps practices

Base Power Company at a glance

Base Power installs home batteries and sells below-market energy in Texas, earning its margin from the grid instead of your bill.

Base Power is a next-generation power company that installs whole-home backup batteries and sells fixed-rate, below-market electricity to homeowners, primarily in Texas. It coordinates its fleet of distributed batteries as a single grid asset, earning revenue from wholesale energy markets so it can keep customer rates low.

$1.3B raised · latest: Series C · $1B · October 2025 · backed by Addition, Andreessen Horowitz, Thrive Capital, Lightspeed Venture Partners

Summary

Design, build, and operate critical core services for BaseOS, the operating system for the modern power grid. The role involves defining system architecture, managing infrastructure as code, and ensuring reliability and scalability for distributed battery systems.

Job description

About Base

Base is America’s next-generation power company. We’re rebuilding the foundation of modern civilization–electricity–by deploying a vast network of distributed batteries that is transforming today’s fragile, centralized grid into a resilient and abundant system. We are engineers, operators, and creatives solving some of the most complex, interdisciplinary challenges of our time.

About the Role

We're building BaseOS — the operating system that runs the modern power company. It coordinates thousands of distributed batteries, powers our internal operations, and enables us to deliver reliable, low-cost electricity at scale. As a software engineer on this team, you'll build and operate real services that BaseOS depends on — services that control real hardware in real homes. You'll work across the stack, from backend systems and APIs to the infrastructure they run on, and you'll grow quickly because the problems here don't fit into a tidy box. This is a role for engineers who want to learn by shipping, take ownership early, and work on systems that touch the physical world.

What You'll Do

  • Build and ship: Write, test, and deploy backend services in Golang and Python that power core parts of BaseOS
  • Own your slice: Take responsibility for the features and services you build, from design through production
  • Learn the full stack: Work across application logic, APIs, and infrastructure — you won't stay in one lane
  • Build for the real world: Contribute to workflow systems (e.g., Temporal) that manage deployments, device control, and operations at scale
  • Work with infrastructure: Use Terraform and AWS to deploy and operate the services you build
  • Partner across teams: Work with hardware, deployments, and operations to understand the constraints your software has to work within
  • Move at Base pace: Ship, learn from what breaks, and improve — quickly and with good judgment

What You'll Bring

  • 1–5 years of professional software development experience, with real, hands-on work shipping production code
  • Proficiency in a backend language (Go, Python, Java, or similar) and the ability to write clear, well-tested code
  • A working understanding of distributed systems — what can go wrong in production, and why
  • Some exposure to cloud infrastructure (AWS or GCP) and containerization (Docker, Kubernetes)
  • Curiosity about infrastructure as code (Terraform or similar) — prior experience is a plus, not a requirement
  • A bias toward action: you'd rather ship something and iterate than wait for a perfect plan
  • Strong communication and a genuine interest in the "why" behind the systems you're building
  • Bonus: exposure to IoT systems, real-time control systems, workflow orchestration, or DevOps practices

About the Team

America's power grid is failing — electricity costs have risen even as generation gets cheaper, and blackouts are becoming more common. We're building the software that fixes it. Our team owns the entire stack: firmware that controls batteries in thousands of homes, trading algorithms that buy and sell power in real-time markets, distributed commanding systems that orchestrate a growing fleet as a single grid asset, factory software for our Austin manufacturing line, and the product experience that makes it all invisible to homeowners. If you want to write code that physically moves electrons, ships hardware, and reshapes critical infrastructure, this is the job.

Please note: Base is a startup, which means priorities shift and evolve quickly. Your role may expand or change based on the needs of the business at any given time, so the responsibilities listed may not be exhaustive.

Our Values

  • First Principles Thinking: Question assumptions. Principles > rules.
  • Operate at Base Pace: Focus on what matters, act quickly, and learn by doing.
  • Give & Get Feedback: Be direct, be humble, and maintain a growth mindset.
  • Everyone’s an Owner: Follow through on commitments and own results.
  • Strong Opinions, Loosely Held: Drive clarity and make calls with imperfect information.
  • Committed to the Mission: Rebuilding the grid is a big challenge. We work hard because we care deeply about the impact we’re creating. We work in-person. It’s not a 9-to-5. We are all-in.
  • Fun & Optimism Coexist with Grit: Collaboration and celebration coincide with the intensity of building real things.

Do the best work of your life at Base.

Why work at Base Power Company

  • Culture: Described as "intense, fast-paced, and deeply mission-driven." The company demands high output, ownership, and a bias toward action. It's explicitly stated as "not for everyone, and that's by design." This is a high-ownership, low-ambiguity environment.
  • Work Model: On-site at Base HQ in Austin, Texas. Proximity to the product and team is central to how they move fast. "Do I need to be based in Texas? Yes."
  • Hiring Speed: Fast process — aim for 1st conversation to offer in ~2 weeks.
  • Interview Process: 3-4 hour on-site including technical assessments and behavioral/team conversations. Focus on "how [you] approach problems, communicate tradeoffs, and collaborate."
  • Non-traditional backgrounds: Explicitly welcome: "We care about what you've built and how you think, not the logos on your resume. Some of our best people came from non-traditional paths."
  • Engineering Culture: Heavy focus on hardware + software + field operations. Talent sources heavily from Tesla, Anduril, SpaceX — firms known for hardcore engineering and manufacturing excellence. Roles span hardware engineering, firmware, software, manufacturing, field installation/service, operations, growth, and design.
  • Team Composition: ~29% of employees are in technical roles; ~15% in operations; significant representation of trades workers (11).
  • Notable Perks: Opportunity to work on physical infrastructure deployed at scale; chance to contribute meaningfully to grid modernization and American energy resilience.

Application questions