AI For a Mission (Recruiting Post)

The world is building faster than ever, and the bottleneck isn't steel, concrete, or capital. It's process and bureaucracy.

US electricity demand is expected to surge 35-50% by 2040, driven by data centers, manufacturing, and mass electrification. Solar accounted for 69% of all new electricity-generating capacity added to the grid in Q1 2025.

But critical projects – solar farms, battery storage projects, grid upgrades – get trapped in the same bureaucratic maze.

Developers of these projects spend months and hundreds of thousands of dollars per project to navigate regulations and local factors that can make or break a project. We build applications to find, analyze, and apply this critical information in every jurisdiction in the United States.

That's the problem we're solving at Spark. Our mission is to help developers build energy infrastructure more efficiently by automating parts of their work.

Why This Matters to Me

Some problems and opportunities are shared by an entire civilization. This is one of them.

Growing up between high-growth economies like Brazil and China, before coming to the US, showed me the importance of reliable energy infrastructure everywhere. At Apple, I built data infrastructure and pipelines to power Siri and Spotlight search. At Brex, I learned about securitization and financial institutions, such as JP Morgan and Fifth Third, which are among the largest financiers of energy projects.

This problem cuts across political lines. America needs to build more energy infrastructure, and current processes are too slow. The $500B+ AI data center boom requires massive power infrastructure expansion. Grid reliability is a national security imperative. Manufacturing reshoring demands abundant electricity. None of this can wait.

What We're Building

We're creating AI agents and workflow tools that help energy developers navigate the regulatory complexity that can make or break million-dollar projects. Think: intelligently aggregating zoning laws, permitting requirements, and local factors across every US jurisdiction.

We’ve doubled our ARR in the last six months and 8x in the last year since graduating from Y Combinator. Our customers are best-in-class developers who have collectively raised over $30B in financing and are building projects that will deliver 90GW+ of reliable power. Some of the best developers in the US have already incorporated us into every project’s workflow, as well as new hire onboarding. We reduced our customers' site diligence time by over 60%.

…And we are not stopping at solar or storage. We build for an inevitable future. Spark is building the AI backbone for America’s next-generation energy grid, encompassing interconnection, transmission, and siting for data centers. $2T in grid investment is required by 2050, and over 2,000 GW of clean energy is stuck in regulatory limbo.

Today, developers waste millions and lose months hiring consultants and lawyers to decode zoning laws, permitting requirements, and public sentiment. Spark replaces all of that – compressing timelines, slashing costs, and unlocking gigawatts of clean power at scale.

The Team We're Building

Kathy Li built EV-grid integration software at WeaveGrid and distributed systems at Google, handling billions of queries. Luca Marturana was a staff engineer and group tech lead at Brex, who joined in their early days. He built billing systems, fraud and dispute handling, global payments, and deposit accounts while mentoring dozens of engineers. Anuj Saigal scaled enterprise sales at EVgo and SunEdison, and structured DOE investments during the Obama administration.

But we're still a small team working to accelerate the energy transition. We are a group of technologists, misfits, and mission-oriented builders committed to bringing the bleeding edge of technology into energy generation.

We're well-funded by world-class investors including Y Combinator, AI Grant, and more to be announced.

Who we need

We're seeking mission-driven builders who want to tackle large-scale problems and can move with the urgency our customers and industry need. We’re hiring full-stack engineers who thrive in ambiguous environments and want to own products and outcomes.

Our culture values urgency, ownership, truth-seeking, energy, and warmth.

Our Technology

Spark is bridging the latest, best-in-class AI infrastructure to the overlooked renewables and energy sector. Our platform simplifies fragmented data sources into developer intelligence, leveraging vector databases, RAG, and vertical domain knowledge. Our platform is the most comprehensive in the utility solar sector that we know of, and we are excited to serve our customers through deeper workflows and new vertical opportunities.

If you're energized by the idea of using cutting-edge AI to unlock abundant clean energy, let's talk. Reach out at [email protected]