Senior Electrical Engineer - Microgrid Controls & Automation Architecture (Microgrids)

Location: United States; based in Knoxville, Tennessee, Phoenix, Arizona, or Dallas, Texas. Occasional travel to customer locations, project sites, vendor facilities, and commissioning activities is required.

Salary: $154,200–$223,200 per year, plus benefits and potential performance incentives, bonuses, commissions, or equity.

Company

hirify.global delivers energy infrastructure solutions that improve power reliability, infrastructure performance, resilience, and sustainability across North America, the UK, and Europe.

What you will do

• Develop integrated controls and automation architectures for microgrids, distributed generation plants, and behind-the-meter power systems.
• Define interfaces among DCS, microgrid controllers, EMS, SCADA, generator and BESS controls, protection systems, and utility interconnections.
• Prepare control philosophies, functional specifications, sequence-of-operations documents, cause-and-effect matrices, and communications architecture diagrams.
• Develop strategies for islanding, synchronization, black start, load following, generation dispatch, reserve management, voltage and frequency control, and fast load shedding.
• Lead multi-vendor integration with OEMs, suppliers, utilities, EPC teams, protection engineers, and customers.
• Support factory and site acceptance testing, commissioning, performance testing, power system studies, and operational troubleshooting.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering or a closely related discipline.
• At least 8 years of experience in power generation, utilities, industrial automation, microgrids, or distributed energy systems, including plant-level controls integration.
• Experience developing or integrating controls architectures for grid-connected and islanded microgrid systems.
• Working knowledge of DCS, SCADA, PLC, EMS, microgrid controllers, generator controls, synchronizing systems, protective relays, and power management systems.
• Experience with IEC 61850, DNP3, Modbus TCP/IP, OPC UA, and Ethernet/IP, as well as control specifications, logic diagrams, network architectures, and commissioning procedures.
• Ability to review confidential US security information and work in the United States.

Nice to have

• Experience with utility-scale or data center microgrids integrating RICE, gas turbines, fuel cells, renewable generation, and BESS.
• Hardware-in-the-loop testing, real-time simulation, dynamic modeling, or controls validation experience.
• Professional Engineer licensure or ability to obtain licensure.
• Knowledge of IEEE, UL, NFPA, utility interconnection, cybersecurity, and mission-critical resiliency requirements.
• Experience mentoring engineers and developing reusable engineering standards and lessons learned.

Culture & Benefits

• Collaborative technical leadership across engineering, project management, executive, customer, OEM, vendor, utility, and field teams.
• Health insurance, retirement plans, and paid time off.
• Potential performance incentives, bonuses, commissions, or equity depending on the role.
• Opportunity to contribute to energy infrastructure, microgrid modernization, cybersecurity, and resilient power systems.