Project Manager, Operations Management

We're looking for someone to help grow Ember's network of charging hubs. You'll work alongside our existing hub developers to find sites, take them through legals and planning, manage the build and energise them. How you work and think matters more to us than which industry you've worked in. You think clearly, can run several projects at once and are as at home on a site as behind a desk.

About Ember

We're building the future of public transport — convenient, affordable, connected and zero-emission. Our goal is to make it easier and more enjoyable to get from A to B with Ember than it is with your own car.

Ember is a tech company, not a traditional bus operator. We've built a platform that coordinates our entire operation — everything from monitoring vehicles and controlling chargers to selling tickets and calculating ETAs. This allows us to use electric buses more intensively than anyone else in the world, leading to a massive reduction in emissions. It also helps us provide a much better passenger experience, with innovative features like demand-responsive stops.

We’re still tiny, with a handful of routes and ~100 buses. The challenge is to scale this 50x whilst staying lean, increasing efficiency and delivering an even better product experience. We’ve recently raised a Series A from some of Europe’s leading climate VCs and are looking for mission-driven individuals who want to get on board and help take us to the next level.

The role

Charging hubs are Ember's key growth enabler. They give us the ultra-fast charge points we need to run our network, and they act as a base for our fleet — parking, washing, driver lounges and more. We have hubs across Scotland today, with additional sites across the UK under construction or in the pipeline.

You'll join a small team of four. You'll start out supporting the team on their live sites, but we'll be looking for you to be running your own sites end-to-end as quickly as possible. We're typically running a handful of projects at any one time.

Step one is finding a site. You'll need to think about where we need charging capacity to support future routes, scout industrial estates and brownfield plots and reach out to commercial agents, local authorities and landlords. Some great sites are advertised but many are not, so landing one usually means being patient and creative.

Once you've got a site, we move on to lease negotiations, design, the planning application and the power connection. You'll work with network operators to land the grid connection, and with our suppliers to procure, install and commission the charging equipment. Solicitors, architects and engineers are there to help, but the project is yours to drive — you set the direction, you ask the difficult questions and you make the trade-offs.

It's important to be hands-on. We don't go to tender and leave the rest to an outsourced project manager — we want you on site, asking why a kerb is in the wrong place. Even after a site is live, our involvement doesn't stop. The team keeps refining and improving every site, and you'll be part of that work across the network, not just on the sites you've built yourself.

Diversity and equality

At Ember, we support diversity across our team and customers. We work to ensure every employee feels respected and able to give their best, whether temporary, part-time or full-time. We’re happy to offer flexible working patterns where they make sense, are compassionate when it comes to time off and offer enhanced maternity and paternity leave.

You’ll receive a salary of £45,000–£60,000 per annum, depending on your experience and skills, plus share options. You’ll be expected to work from our lovely office in central Edinburgh most days — we value in-person…