Key Responsibilities

SIC Governance & Operations

• Support the Strategic Investment Committee through its stand-up process, including drafting and maintaining bylaws and establishing standard operating procedures (SOPs); then, on an ongoing basis, coordinate committee membership — recommendation, selection, onboarding, and rotation — and manage the quarterly meeting cycle, agendas, deliberations, and minutes.

• Maintain the permanent SIC archive, conflict-of-interest disclosures and recusal records, and the document repository, ensuring process integrity and auditability for the CEO, Governance Board, and NSF Engine evaluator.

Application & Voucher Program Management

• Manage applications for the voucher program, including fielding applications and conducting eligibility screening (TRL/ARL range, technology focus alignment, vendor-spend commitment, and applicant type).

• Coordinate the quarterly RFP cycle end to end — announcement and distribution, intake, scoring logistics, deliberation support, and applicant communications.

Materials & Decision Support

• Produce materials for the use of the SIC, Governance Board, and CEO, including scorecards, narrative recommendation memos, meeting summaries, and the briefing packages that move funding decisions through review and approval.

Vendor Registry & Voucher Menu

• Maintain, update, and expand the registry of vetted vendors across service categories through outreach, research, and network engagement — drawing on the Joules, SCRA, UNC Charlotte, and broader Engine partner networks, as well as applicant-surfaced referrals.

• Evaluate and vet candidate vendors against capability, pricing transparency, capacity, and regional-presence criteria; document cost baselines; and build toward implementing a standardized voucher menu with defined categories and pricing bands.

Project Coordination & Activation

• Coordinate voucher issuance and project activation, serving as the central go-between among startups, vendors, the SIC, Joules Accelerator, UNC Charlotte, and SCRA.

• Lead award activation calls, confirm vendor selection and project timelines, track milestones, and manage follow-on voucher reviews — ensuring funded projects progress toward measurable TRL/ARL advancement and follow-on funding outcomes.

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Qualifications

Required

• 4-10 years of professional experience, with a graduate degree in a relevant field.

• Demonstrated experience working on large, ongoing projects or programs with multiple stakeholders and long time horizons.

• Background in an energy-related field, with enough technical fluency to assess grid-technology applications and communicate credibly with founders, vendors, and committee members.Familiartiy with ARL, TRL, technology commercialization, and startups. 

• Project and/or grant management experience, ideally including federally funded programs and the reporting, compliance, and documentation discipline they require.

• Regionally located in the Southeast and willing to travel across the Engine's region of service and to partner sites.

• Excellent communication skills. 

Ideal / Preferred

• Fundraising or capital-development experience — familiarity with investor engagement, follow-on funding pipelines, or roundtable convening is a strong plus.

 

Reports to: Executive Director, Joules Accelerator / Engine Translation Workstream Leadership

Location: Remote in the Southeast U.S. including: NC, SC, VA, GA, TN. If a candidate is located in Charlotte, NC, some hybrid work will be required. Some travel required (~20%). 

Type: 3-month full-time contract with opportunity to transition to full-time; contingent on NSF grant funding  (grant-funded position tied to the NSF Engine award)

Work authorization: US work authorization required

Benefits: Insurance, PTO 

Compensation: $85-115k depending on experience as salaried