Performance Engineer Monitoring & Diagnostics 5

NAES•Spring, TX

3d•Onsite

About The Position

The Performance Engineer supports NAES Remote Operations and Monitoring & Diagnostics (M&D) services from the Remote Operating Center. The role continuously monitors plant and equipment performance, identifies abnormal operating conditions and emerging equipment issues, performs diagnostic analysis, and works with plant teams to resolve issues. It combines power plant operations knowledge, equipment diagnostics, data analysis, and performance engineering, using plant historian data, M&D applications, equipment models, alarm systems, and engineering tools to identify equipment degradation, operational abnormalities, and opportunities to improve reliability, availability, and plant performance. The position also supports development and standardization of NAES M&D capabilities as additional facilities are onboarded. The engineer provides diagnostic and performance support to ROC personnel and plant Operations, Maintenance, Engineering, and management teams. Responsibilities include managing M&D cases, communicating findings and recommendations, preparing reports, supporting outage planning and root-cause investigations, and helping onboard new plants by reviewing data and instrumentation and validating monitoring models and workflows. The role is primarily office-based in a control room or operations center, with occasional travel to plant sites and NAES offices. It involves extended periods of sitting, computer use, and monitoring multiple screens. Employees are expected to follow NAES safety rules and procedures and work safely at all times.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in engineering (mechanical, electrical, or related field) from an accredited college or university recognized by the United States Department of Education, or equivalent.
10 years of experience in power plant operations, performance engineering, controls, or a related field.
Working knowledge of major power plant equipment and systems, including gas turbines, steam turbines, HRSGs, generators, pumps, compressors, heat exchangers, cooling systems, and balance-of-plant equipment.
Experience with data integration and system onboarding.
Knowledge of SCADA systems and plant control systems, historian systems and data analytics tools, CMMS platforms, performance modeling tools, and digital platforms.
Strong understanding of power plant operations and equipment.
Ability to interpret plant data and identify performance issues.
Strong communication and training skills.
Ability to work in a fast-paced, evolving digital operations environment.
Willingness to travel periodically to support site onboarding and ROC development.
Ability to remain mentally alert and work safely, and to follow company safety rules, procedures, warnings, and posted safety signs.

Nice To Haves

Experience with plant historians and analytical platforms such as AVEVA PI/OSIsoft PI, Predict-It, APR, Pathway, or similar monitoring and diagnostic applications.

Responsibilities

Continuously monitor plant and major equipment health using historian data, Predict-It, APR/Pathway models, diagnostic tools, alarms, and other M&D applications.
Investigate alerts, anomalies, equipment performance deviations, and abnormal operating conditions; perform first-level diagnostic analysis and recommend next steps.
Manage M&D cases from identification through investigation, plant notification, escalation, and closure.
Identify developing equipment problems before they lead to forced outages, derates, or significant equipment damage.
Provide equipment diagnostic advisories and actionable recommendations to plant operations and maintenance teams.
Review equipment behavior during startups, shutdowns, trips, and other significant operating events.
Monitor unit and equipment performance, identify degradation, and analyze data to support troubleshooting and root-cause investigations.
Support thermal performance monitoring, unit-trip root-cause analysis, restart support, and identification of performance improvement opportunities.
Identify recurring equipment issues and reliability trends across supported facilities.
Develop corrective and preventive maintenance recommendations based on M&D findings.
Support outage planning by identifying equipment concerns, inspection opportunities, and recommended outage work scope.
Provide technical guidance to Remote Operations personnel during alarms, abnormal conditions, startups, shutdowns, and other operating events.
Support alarm notification and escalation processes and communicate significant findings to appropriate plant and NAES personnel.
Coordinate with plant Operations, Maintenance, Engineering, and management teams to resolve identified issues.
Document findings, recommendations, plant responses, and case resolution.
Prepare regular M&D reports covering open issues, new findings, equipment concerns, recommendations, and resolved cases.
Participate in recurring M&D review meetings with plant teams and customers and support customer discussions about equipment health, performance, and M&D findings.
Develop instrumentation-out-of-service reports and identify instrumentation issues affecting monitoring or diagnostic capabilities.
Prepare outage equipment worklist recommendations based on identified equipment conditions.
Support onboarding new plants into NAES M&D services by reviewing historian data availability, tag quality, instrumentation, and equipment configuration.
Assist with development and validation of equipment models and monitoring logic, and support deployment and tuning of APR, Pathway, anomaly detection, and equipment diagnostic models.
Identify instrumentation or data-quality gaps that limit diagnostic effectiveness.
Help develop standardized M&D procedures, workflows, alarm thresholds, escalation criteria, reports, and case-management practices.
Travel periodically to support site onboarding and ROC development.