Staff Applications Engineer
Job description
About Redwood Materials
Redwood Materials was founded in 2017 by JB Straubel, co-founder and former CTO of Tesla, on a simple but radical idea: the critical minerals powering the energy transition already exist. They just need to come back. Today Redwood is the largest lithium-ion battery recycler in North America — recovering, refining, and redeploying critical minerals from end-of-life batteries back into the supply chain. On the energy side, Redwood has deployed the largest second-life battery project in the world, delivering power to AI data centers in months rather than years using proprietary energy architecture engineered entirely in-house. The company is profitable, the market it operates in is projected to grow 20 to 50 times over the next decade, and Redwood is the only company with the supply chain, the technology, and the operational scale to lead it.
Position Summary
The position serves as the technical bridge between Redwood's BESS product design team and the deployment, construction, and service teams who install and maintain its products in the field. Embedded with product design, the role translates field experience into design requirements and helps drive the team's technical roadmap toward products that are cheaper and easier to deploy and service. The position independently defines and executes validation of installability and serviceability, and develops the procedures, tools, and equipment that EPC and service partners use in the field. This is a fully on-site role at 100 Hooper in San Francisco, with approximately 25% travel to project sites and partners. Success requires deep system-level technical understanding combined with practical knowledge of how installers and service technicians actually work.
Essential Duties and Responsibilities
- Represent deployment, construction, and service needs within the product design team, translating field feedback into clear design requirements
- Guide the BESS technical roadmap by identifying and prioritizing design changes that reduce installed cost, install time, and service burden
- Drive new product and design improvements in partnership with mechanical, electrical, and firmware engineers
- Develop and execute test plans with test engineering to validate the installability and serviceability of products
- Develop installation and service procedures, tooling, and equipment in partnership with EPC and service teams
- Support field deployments and service events on-site to diagnose issues, gather data, and close the loop on design gaps
- Advise cross-functional stakeholders on system-level technical tradeoffs affecting deployment and serviceability
Skills, Knowledge, and Abilities
- Bachelor's degree in Mechanical or Electrical Engineering preferred, or equivalent experience
- 8+ years of experience in industrial battery storage or solar installation, design, or deployment
- Deep system-level understanding of BESS or PV systems, including DC and AC electrical architecture and applicable codes (e.g. NEC)
- Experience as a licensed or journeyman electrician is a plus
- Mechanical design experience (e.g. CAD) is a plus
- Demonstrated ability to work independently, set priorities, and influence cross-functional teams without direct authority
- Ability to travel up to 25% of the time, including to active construction sites
In accordance with California pay transparency laws, the salary range for this position is listed below. Actual compensation may vary based on a variety of factors, including experience, education, and skills.
California Pay Range:$167,500—$220,000 USDThe position is full-time. Compensation will be commensurate with experience.
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Skills mentioned
We are Redwood Materials, and we're on a mission to build a circular supply chain to power a sustainable world and accelerate the reduction of fossil fuels. Founded in 2017 by J. B. Straubel, former CTO of Tesla, Inc., we recognized the critical need to address the end-of-life of lithium-ion batteries and create a domestic, sustainable source for the materials essential for electric vehicles and clean energy products. Our core belief is that to make batteries truly sustainable and affordable, we must close the loop. This means not just recycling batteries, but also refining the recovered materials and remanufacturing them into critical battery components. At our facilities, including our Tahoe Campus in Northern Nevada and our developing Carolina Campus near Charleston, South Carolina, we're localizing a global battery supply chain that has traditionally spanned over 50,000 miles. We're proud to be producing battery materials in the U.S., utilizing as many recycled batteries as possible. Our innovative processes allow us to recover, on average, more than 95% of key battery elements like nickel, cobalt, lithium, and copper from end-of-life batteries and manufacturing scrap. These recovered materials are then used to produce strategic battery components, such as anode copper foil and cathode active materials, supplying them directly back to battery manufacturers. We're not just recycling; we're creating a sustainable ecosystem. Our operations are designed with sustainability at their core, with our new campuses aiming for 100% electric operations and zero fossil fuel use in their processes. We're driven by the understanding that climate change demands an urgent shift to electrification, and batteries are the key. By creating a circular economy for these vital materials, we're significantly reducing the environmental impact, cost, and supply chain risks associated with battery production. We partner with a wide range of companies, from automotive giants like Ford, Toyota, Volkswagen, Audi, and BMW to consumer electronics companies and e-waste recyclers, to ensure a steady stream of materials and to integrate our sustainable components back into new products. Our goal is ambitious: to produce 100 GWh of sustainable battery materials annually at each campus, enough to power over one million electric vehicles each year, and ultimately to make electric mobility and clean energy storage more accessible and environmentally sound for everyone.
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