The Role
Lead and build a cross-office modelling software squad in São Paulo, writing and reviewing production Python code, co-designing module boundaries, delivering features, migrating legacy optimisation code, managing delivery cadence, hiring and line-managing local engineers, and embedding AI-assisted engineering practices into the development workflow.
Summary Generated by Built In
The Origin Model sits at the centre of Aurora's forecasting capability, allowing Aurora to help governments, investors, and utilities make billion-dollar decisions on the journey to net zero. The models span power markets across the globe — translating complex energy system dynamics into robust, scalable software that underpins our market outlooks, client insights, and software platforms.
This is a founding role. Aurora's São Paulo office is an established modelling hub for the Americas, but the Origin Model Development team there is still to be built — and you'll be the one building it. You will lead a new cross-office squad within the Origin Model Development team — with existing Oxford-based engineers and São Paulo-based engineers that you will help recruit. If you're drawn to the early-stage work of standing up a team — hiring the first engineers, setting the working norms, earning technical authority by doing the work yourself — this is that job. Bridging the two sites and keeping the squad working as one is the heart of it.
This is a hands-on technical leadership role — the technical work is the primary job, not delivery management alone. You will write and review production code alongside your squad, co-design the squad's module boundaries with a senior technical authority who holds final say on architecture contracts, and deliver new features and progressive migration from a mature Python codebase into a well-bounded, modern architecture. The codebase uses GAMS with MOSEK as the optimisation solver. Deep expertise in energy system and numerical optimisation is strongly preferred for this work.
Aurora is investing actively in AI-assisted engineering — not as a policy, but as a practice. Engineers here are expected to use AI tools fluently across the full development workflow: writing, reviewing, testing, and analysing code. Beyond personal productivity, this role contributes to building the agent workflows and tooling that raise the velocity of the whole team. If you have strong opinions about what good AI-assisted engineering actually looks like in production, this is an environment where those opinions matter.
Running a cross-office team well is genuinely hard. Neither office is secondary to the other — the squad lead's job is to ensure São Paulo never becomes a remote execution arm for Oxford decisions. You will own the cohesion of the squad across two offices and two time zones — protecting the daily overlap window as synchronous time, and defaulting to async-first written decisions outside it.
The São Paulo role requires 3 days a week in the office. Building a new team requires consistent in-person presence, and you will work closely with the existing teams already based there.
Key Responsibilities
- Lead the squad's technical work hands-on — write and review production code as a core part of the role, not an occasional contribution.
- Co-design the squad's module boundaries and reusable interfaces with a senior technical authority who holds the final architecture contracts — contribute heavily to those design decisions while they remain the single decision-maker on seam boundaries.
- Drive the squad's delivery: board health, sprint cadence, stand-up, retrospective, velocity, and blocker removal — across two offices.
- Prevent office-line fracture — allocate work along the squad's seam, never along geographic lines. It is one squad.
- Protect the daily Oxford / São Paulo overlap window as synchronous time; default to written, recorded, async-first decisions outside it.
- Line-manage the São Paulo-based engineers in the squad: run 1:1s, write performance reviews, and provide ongoing development feedback. The Modelling Software Engineering Manager sets strategy, is the escalation point, and owns the formal process end-to-end — including compensation decisions.
- Found the São Paulo side of the squad from close to zero — the squad will grow over time, with the São Paulo side building out progressively, and you will be one of its first engineers. Shape roles and participate in interviewing recruits alongside the Modelling Software Engineering Manager, who owns hiring end-to-end.
- Work closely with peer squad leads to distribute work across squads and surface commonalities — so squads do not reimplement the same thing; route genuinely cross-cutting architecture decisions through the senior technical authority who owns the architecture contracts.
- Design features generic enough to serve multiple regions through the squad's interface — while actively resisting premature generalisation. Generic enough, not overcomplicated.
Skills, Knowledge and Expertise
Required attributes:
- 5+ years of professional software engineering experience writing production code; you are a working engineer, not a former one.
- Demonstrated technical leadership within a team — you have led technical work, made in-squad design decisions, and earned authority by doing the work.
- Strong Python engineering skills — this is the primary language of the codebase.
- Software engineering fundamentals — clean module design, reusable interfaces, and the judgment to decompose a complex codebase incrementally.
- Hands-on experience with modern Agile / Continuous Delivery practices — you have raised a team's delivery maturity, not just operated within someone else's process.
- A direct communicator — comfortable raising problems early, giving honest feedback, and working across organisational lines.
- Meaningful exposure to AI-assisted engineering across the development workflow — you have used these tools in practice and have a view on where they genuinely add value; you are expected to contribute to the agent workflows and tooling Aurora uses to raise team velocity.
- Full professional fluency in both English and Portuguese (written and spoken); English is the primary working language across both offices.
Desirable attributes:
- Experience leading or operating within a distributed or cross-office team — you understand what it takes to keep a split team working as one.
- Experience founding, launching, or being an early member of a new team, office, or company — you know the specific energy of building something from close to zero and want more of it.
- Strong expertise in energy system optimisation and numerical / mathematical optimisation (LP, MIP, or equivalent); you understand the domain at depth, not just the surrounding tooling.
- Energy market or power systems domain knowledge — you understand the problems the models are solving, not just the software that solves them.
What we offer
Some of the benefits we include are:
- A fun, informal and international work culture
- A competitive salary package
- Access to regular coaching and mentoring sessions and the opportunity to learn from experienced professionals
- Access to the Aurora Academy, our training programme offering a range of opportunities to develop your skills within the responsibilities of your role and within the wider context of the industry
At Aurora we will consider all requests for flexible working. For most roles, the following types of flexibility are usually possible: a hybrid model of remote and in-office working and flexible start and finish times. Please talk to us during the interview about the flexibility we could offer and we will be happy to explore the best available option for you.
The Company is committed to the principle that no employee or job applicant shall receive unfavourable treatment on grounds of age, disability, gender reassignment, race, religion or belief, sex, sexual orientation, marriage or civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity.
The successful candidate would start as soon as possible. The team will review applications as they are received. Salary will be competitive with experience.
About
From its academic roots, Aurora Energy Research is a thriving, rapidly growing company, currently serving over 1000 of the world’s most influential energy sector participants, including utilities, investors, and governments. While we constantly strive to reach new markets and diversify our product portfolio, we are already active across the globe in Asia-Pacific, Latin America, Europe, South Africa and North America, working with leading organisations to provide comprehensive market intelligence, bespoke analytic and advisory services, and cutting-edge software. We are a diverse team of experts with vast energy, financial, and consulting backgrounds, covering power, hydrogen, carbon, and fossil commodities. With this, we provide data-driven intelligence to fuel strategic decisions in the global energy transformation.
Skills Required
- 5+ years professional software engineering experience writing production code
- Demonstrated technical leadership within a team
- Strong Python engineering skills
- Software engineering fundamentals: clean module design and reusable interfaces
- Hands-on experience with modern Agile / Continuous Delivery practices
- Direct communicator, comfortable giving honest feedback and raising issues early
- Meaningful exposure to AI-assisted engineering across the development workflow
- Full professional fluency in English and Portuguese (written and spoken)
- São Paulo presence: 3 days per week in the office
- Experience leading or operating within a distributed or cross-office team
- Experience founding, launching, or being an early member of a new team or office
- Strong expertise in energy system optimisation and numerical/mathematical optimisation (LP, MIP or equivalent)
- Hands-on familiarity with GAMS and MOSEK optimisation solver
- Energy market or power systems domain knowledge
- Experience participating in hiring and shaping early team roles
Aurora Energy Research Compensation & Benefits Highlights
The following summarizes recurring compensation and benefits themes identified from responses generated by popular LLMs to common candidate questions about Aurora Energy Research and has not been reviewed or approved by Aurora Energy Research.
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Healthcare Strength — Healthcare in certain offices is described as comprehensive, including core medical coverage with vision and dental. Feedback suggests supportive health resources are accessible alongside standard coverage.
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Leave & Time Off Breadth — Time off is portrayed as generous in some locations, with standard PTO supplemented by additional company-wide holidays. Parental leave policies are also described as robust in certain markets.
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Wellbeing & Lifestyle Benefits — Wellbeing support is highlighted through a 24/7 assistance programme and locally tailored perk platforms. Feedback suggests these offerings complement core benefits and support everyday needs.
Aurora Energy Research Insights
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The Company
What We Do
From its academic roots, Aurora Energy Research has grown to become the largest dedicated power market analytics company in Europe, providing data-driven intelligence for strategic decisions in the global energy transformation. We are a diverse team of over 350 experts with vast energy, financial and consulting backgrounds, covering power, hydrogen, carbon and fossil commodities. We are active in Europe, APAC and the US, working with world-leading organisations to provide comprehensive market intelligence, bespoke analytic and advisory services, and cutting-edge software.
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