Grid Planning & Market Development

🌍 Grid Planning & Market Development Lead, Asia at Energy Tech Nonprofit (Remote | English)

Location: Fully Remote; preference for candidates based in one of our priority markets across Southeast Asia, India, Pakistan, South Korea, China, or Japan
Employment Type: Full-Time employee, on an annual contract term, with option to renew
Languages Required: English proficiency is mandatory
Experience Required: Significant relevant experience, typically 8+ years. Relevant experience may have been gained in market development or consulting, but equally within a system operator, ministry, regulator, university or research organization.
Salary Range: Market-related (by region), based on experience
Reports to: Harry van der Weijde, Head of Research & Market Development
Works Closely With: Charlotte Heikendorf, Marketing Lead and various other technical experts/leaders
Work Travel Requirements: Monthly regional travel is expected
Start Date Goal: Flexible; notice-dependent

🎯 About the Role

We are looking for a Grid Planning & Market Development Lead, Asia to accelerate the adoption of open source energy modelling across selected priority markets in Asia - improving the quality, speed and credibility of multi-billion-dollar energy infrastructure decisions**.** 

Your role will be to build awareness, relationships and opportunities with the institutions that shape energy planning, including system operators, ministries, regulators, consultants, research organizations and other influential organizations.

You will combine a strong understanding of the regional energy sector with enough technical energy system modelling experience to engage credibly with experts. You should be equally comfortable discussing modelling approaches with a system planning team, exploring institutional challenges with a ministry, speaking at a major conference or turning an initial conversation into a concrete project.

You will also be OET's eyes and ears in Asia. Your understanding of what is happening across the region will help our senior leadership, market development and marketing teams decide where we should focus, how we should position ourselves and how we can communicate more effectively with different audiences.

Our current priority regions include Southeast Asia, India and Pakistan, South Korea, China and Japan. We do not expect one person to have deep experience or established networks across all of these markets. Strong networks and experience in a meaningful subset are sufficient.

You will report to OET's Head of Research & Market Development and have considerable autonomy to shape our presence in the region. You will normally own opportunities from initial engagement through to contracting, drawing on colleagues across OET and working together with the Head of Research & Market Development on particularly large or strategic opportunities.

🛠️ Your Key Responsibilities

• Build strong relationships with system operators, ministries, regulators, consultants, research institutions and other organizations involved in energy planning across priority Asian markets. 
• Grow awareness and understanding of open source energy modelling through direct engagement, conferences, seminars, workshops and relevant regional networks. 
• Identify where open approaches can make a meaningful difference and turn promising conversations into concrete project concepts and opportunities. Where funding is needed to enable adoption, help identify potential funders and work with OET's global market development leadership to develop an appropriate funding route.
• Respond to relevant tenders and procurement processes, including opportunities from organizations such as the Asian Development Bank and other international institutions. 
• Act as OET's eyes and ears in Asia by understanding emerging priorities, institutional developments, funding opportunities, competing approaches and changes in the regional energy modelling landscape. Feed these insights into senior leadership and Marketing and Communications to improve OET's strategy, positioning and outreach.
• Advise technical project teams on the context of Asian energy system modeling.

✅ Must-haves

There is no single career path into this role. You might currently work in market development or consulting, but you could equally be a senior professional at a system operator, ministry or regulator, or a professor or senior researcher who has built strong relationships across the sector and wants to use that experience to drive change more directly.

What matters to us is that you bring:

• Strong regional networks and institutional understanding. You have meaningful relationships with energy sector institutions in at least some of our priority Asian markets. You understand how energy planning decisions are made, who influences them and how the relevant institutions interact.
• Technical credibility in energy system modelling. You have meaningful hands-on experience with power or energy system modelling and understand modelling approaches, capabilities and limitations well enough to engage technical counterparts at their level. You will not be expected to work as a full time modeler in this role, but you are likely to advise modeling teams on the local context.
• Excellent communication and stakeholder engagement skills. You can build trust one to one, lead conversations with senior decision makers, deliver compelling presentations and seminars, facilitate workshops and explain complex technical subjects to very different audiences.
• Strong judgment and the ability to turn relationships into action. You can recognize promising opportunities, understand what an institution actually needs, shape projects collaboratively and move an idea from an initial conversation towards a funded project or contract.
• Genuine commitment to open-source approaches. You understand why transparency, reproducibility, collaboration, institutional capability and reduced dependence on proprietary solutions matter in energy planning, and you can persuade others of their value.
• An entrepreneurial, culturally aware, and highly autonomous working style. You are comfortable creating your own activity, developing relationships over time, deciding where to focus and operating across different institutional and cultural environments. You also enjoy collaborating and know when bringing in the right colleague will make an opportunity stronger.

🧩 Other Essentials

• Ability to manage your responsibilities independently, in a fully-remote role, as part of a geographically distributed team
• The ability to manage multiple competing priorities, and adapt in an evolving work environment at a growing company
• Strong communication skills, tactfulness, and ability to collaborate with cross-functional teams asynchronously
• Fluency in English (our main working language) is mandatory. Other language proficiency is a bonus.

💎 Bonus Points For

• Interest or experience with open source projects like PyPSA or similar
• Experience with proprietary tools such as PLEXOS or similar
• Prior work at a young nonprofit, and/or in the energy sector
• Prior work as part of a fully-remote, distributed team
• Experience responding to tenders or developing projects with organizations such as the Asian Development Bank, World Bank or other multilateral and bilateral development institutions
• Experience with development finance, philanthropic funding or donor funded energy programs

A university degree is not required, but a bonus. Your experience, communication skills, and work ethic matter most.

🧭 About Us

Open Energy Transition (OET) is a nonprofit organization on a mission to make open approaches the global standard for energy planning.

Decisions worth billions in energy infrastructure are still often based on closed models, opaque assumptions and consultant dependent processes. We develop and apply open source software, data and modelling approaches so that system operators, governments and other institutions can make better decisions and build lasting analytical capability of their own.

Our fully remote team of around 50 energy system modelers, software engineers and other specialists works with energy institutions around the world. We combine deep technical expertise with a highly autonomous, collaborative culture and an ambitious goal: changing how important energy planning decisions are made.

To learn more about OET and our awesome team, you can visit our website, and browse around our Handbook.

✨ What We Offer

• A flexible, fully remote work environment where you’re trusted to work very autonomously. Zero micro-management, as that goes against our culture.
• The opportunity to become part of a hardworking, passionate, team that will value and respect your contributions, and is working to create positive societal change in the energy sector.
• A culture that values transparency, empathy, trust, humility, diversity, collaboration, and recognition.
• An open-door policy, where reciprocal feedback is encouraged. You’ll always know where you stand, and always have the ability to have your voice heard, simply by reaching out.
• A pretty flat hierarchical structure, where titles are not emphasized, and all contributions are valued.
• A competitive salary, guaranteed annual reviews, and growth potential. Any relevant benefits depend on your country of residence.
• Supportive onboarding and training that is tailored to your strengths, interests, and career ambitions. This includes access to learning and development support from the company.
• The ability to request expensing for home office items that will benefit your workflow.
• The ability to be part of our formation! We’re still growing, changing, and improving. Anyone who is part of our team now is able to meaningfully contribute towards our culture, and processes. We’re open to all suggestions, and take them seriously!

📝 What Our Hiring Process Entails

We take hiring seriously, and want to bring on candidates who will contribute positively towards our culture just as much as they will succeed in their roles.

Also, we don’t only want to have good outcomes from you. We also want you to feel happy and fulfilled in your position. That means we have a structured process to determine best fit. Our hiring process is as follows:

1. Candidates apply via Greenhouse, and include as much information as possible and comfortable.
2. Various team members of OET will shortlist candidates in our ATS.
3. Certain shortlisted candidates will be contacted to arrange a max. 30 minute screening call.
4. From those candidates, some will go through to a first-round interview of around 1 hour, focused on role fit.
5. Finalists will go through to a second-round interview of around 1 hour, focused on culture fit.
6. Bonus round -  there may be a short written, take-home assignment, depending on the role.
7. The chosen candidate will be provided with a written offer, and the opportunity to ask any questions.
8. Onboarding with our People Team begins.
9. Your start date arrives!

➡️ How to Apply

If you're excited to bring clarity and efficiency to the chaos of the lives of our senior leadership team, we’d love to hear from you! Please submit an application via Greenhouse (our ATS). All applications are reviewed in there. If you have any questions about OET or the role, we’d be happy to answer them should we invite you to take part in a screening call or interview.

Before you apply, please ensure that you are a fit for all the mandatory requirements for this role.

Please note that due to the volume of applications we receive, we are not able to respond to individual emails or LinkedIn requests. Kindly submit your application via Greenhouse, and we will shortlist and reach out to candidates.

If you have not received a response within 2 weeks of submitting your application, please consider it unsuccessful at this point in time. We may, however, still reach out in future. Our team maintains Talent Pools, containing candidates shortlisted for contact for future roles that may arise.

We look forward to meeting the next person who will become an invaluable part of our team! Thank you for your time, and for considering joining OET.

If this role is not for you, feel free to check back later for any future positions that may have been posted.