Power Platform & Automation Engineer

Idaho National Laboratory•Idaho Falls, ID

About The Position

Idaho National Laboratory is hiring a Power Platform & Automation Engineer to work in HR's Product Experience & Insights team, which is part of HR Operations. In this role, you will empower HR professionals who recruit, develop, and support researchers and scientists driving the nation's nuclear energy and national security missions. Your work will ensure HR teams have modern tools, streamlined processes, and intelligent systems, directly enabling the lab to attract and retain talent. As a member of the HR Product Experience & Insights team, you will meet with HR teams to understand their workflows, then design and build PowerApps, Power Automate workflows, Power BI dashboards, and AI-powered solutions. You will evaluate whether automation or a new system is the right fix and own solutions end-to-end. The HR Product Experience & Insights team functions as an internal digital creative agency, focusing on making it easier to be an employee, manager, and HR professional at INL. The team consolidates five disciplines: Systems Strategy, Business Analysis, Automation Engineering, UX Research & Design, and Data Analytics. The Power Platform & Automation Engineer serves as the build engine for PEI, translating discovery work into delivered application and automation products. You will document customer needs, iterate through tangible drafts, and work agilely. This role requires understanding business needs to determine if automation, a workflow, or a new system is the appropriate solution. You will own solution delivery, primarily using the Microsoft Power Platform (PowerApps, Power Automate, Power BI), but also capable of building custom solutions in Python (Django, Flask), .NET, or other platforms when necessary. AI engineering, including Python, generative AI, prompt engineering, and agentic automation using tools like Microsoft Copilot Studio, Claude, and other custom platforms, is also a key component. This role is driven by the growing demand for continual optimization and systems replacement within HR. Success is measured by increased efficiency, higher quality work, and improved job satisfaction for the users.

Requirements

Level 2-Bachelor’s Degree and 2 years of experience building production solutions on the Microsoft Power Platform (PowerApps, Power Automate, Power BI), or equivalent low-code/full-stack development experience OR a HS diploma and 8 years of experience building production solutions on the Microsoft Power Platform (PowerApps, Power Automate, Power BI), or equivalent low-code/full-stack development experience.
Level 3-Bachelor’s Degree and 5 years of experience building production solutions on the Microsoft Power Platform (PowerApps, Power Automate, Power BI), or equivalent low-code/full-stack development experience or a Masters Degree and 2 years of experience OR a HS diploma and 11 years of experience building production solutions on the Microsoft Power Platform (PowerApps, Power Automate, Power BI), or equivalent low-code/full-stack development experience.
Genuinely personable and energized by working one-on-one with people, not just eager to get to the keyboard.
Experience building on the Microsoft Power Platform (PowerApps, Power Automate, or Power BI), through professional work, internships, or substantial personal/academic projects.
Basic exposure to DAX for building simple measures or calculated fields in Power BI, with a willingness to go deeper.
Foundational Python skills, with the ability to grow into using Python alongside low-code tools rather than instead of them.
Exposure to or strong interest in generative AI and prompt engineering; formal production experience not required, but curiosity and self-directed learning are.
Basic SQL proficiency for querying and understanding relational data.
Demonstrated ability to gather requirements from a stakeholder, document them clearly, and translate them into a working solution, even at small scale.
A collaborative, ask-good-questions-first instinct, and comfort saying, “I don't know yet, but I'll find out.”

Nice To Haves

A genuine innovator's mindset: you don't stop at solving the problem in front of you, you look at the surrounding workstream and ask what else could be streamlined.
A builder's mindset: you'd rather prototype something in an afternoon and iterate than spend a week in requirements documents.
Enterprise development experience outside the Power Platform, such as Python web frameworks (Django, Flask), .NET, or other languages and platforms, for the times a custom-built solution is genuinely the better answer.
Experience with HR systems data or platforms (HRIS, ATS, case management); familiarity with Oracle HCM, Oracle Recruiting Cloud, JobVite, Qualtrics, etc.
Experience working side-by-side UX Designers, Business Analysts, and Data Analysts.
Experience with SharePoint site development and administration.
Familiarity with Power Query (M language) for data transformation within Power BI.
Experience with Lucid (Lucidchart, Lucidspark) or Figma for process mapping, wireframing, or data modeling.
Comfort owning your domain in a small, high-impact team where individual accountability is high and cross-functional collaboration is constant.
The instinct to anticipate future needs and questions, not just the one in front of you.

Responsibilities

Meet face-to-face and observe how work actually happens, not just how it gets described.
Elicit and document requirements through interviews and working sessions, translating what a team asks for into what they actually need.
Wireframe and prototype early and throughout using tools like Lucid or Figma for process maps, wireframes, and data modeling.
Catch a bad process before automating it.
Stay with the customer through delivery, checking in on working builds at short, regular intervals, refining requirements as understanding deepens.
Understand full workstreams, not just isolated requests, and proactively surface opportunities to streamline them.
Vet whether automation or a new system is the right fix, and when it's the latter, meet with internal HR teams to gather requirements, work directly with vendors, and stay engaged through implementation.
Work with process owners across HR to plan and sequence solutions against real backlogs.
Collaborate closely with PEI’s other disciplines: Systems Strategy, UX Research & Design, and Data Analytics.
Design and build PowerApps, including apps embedded in SharePoint sites.
Develop automated workflows and RPA solutions in Power Automate.
Build Power BI dashboards and reports.
Apply AI and agentic automation, combining Python, generative AI, and prompt engineering with tools like Microsoft Copilot Studio, custom GPTs, Claude, and Power Automate.
Build custom solutions in Python frameworks (Django, Flask), .NET, or other languages and platforms when a low-code approach isn't the right tool for the job.
Partner with the team's UX designer to ensure what you build is functional, modern, consistent, polished, and pleasant to use.
Maintain critical documentation for what you build.