Principal Power Systems Engineer, AWS Global Energy

Amazon • Herndon, VA

2d • $162,500 - $219,900 • Onsite

About The Position

We are seeking an experienced electrical engineer with extensive experience in power infrastructure design, including power generation and power systems, with a deep understanding of the physics and mathematics of energy systems to support our growing requirements for novel solutions to delivering power to AWS data centers. The Principal Power System Engineer provides the vision, rationale, and recommendations to leadership teams from AWS and our partners for next-generation data center power design, while ensuring current systems meet performance and operational standards. You understand key problems and propose and analyze multiple solutions to produce the most efficient, cost-effective, resilient, and scalable electrical designs achievable. You routinely stay ahead of the latest technology developments and build engineering strategies that will meet the most demanding requirements. At Amazon Web Services (AWS), our data centers are industry leading examples of innovation in the areas of data center critical infrastructure design, space utilization, energy efficiency, and cost effectiveness. We are known for our speed to market, reliability, and lowest total cost of ownership. Our Engineers are on the forefront of creating and delivering the most innovative products to our customers and are known for being a diverse and upbeat team that is continually improving the world of cloud computing. We continue to grow and are looking for individuals that can support our mission, enjoy a challenge, and have a desire for professional growth and continuous learning. AWS’s work environment is unique and offers an exceptional opportunity for the right candidate. If you are a creative, smart, and driven individual that enjoys working with complex problems, we want YOU! As a Principal Power Systems Engineer, you will serve as the Subject Matter Expert and technical leader within the Power Generation Solutions team for advanced electrical systems, microgrid implementations, and optimization efforts to maximize the capacity out of our systems. You will own complex and ambiguous problems that span multiple teams and drive technical decisions that impact AWS’ global infrastructure strategy. You will lead the technical strategy of different power and energy configurations, including new strategies and technologies to ensure that we can exceed our customers expectations for delivering power to our data centers. You work across multiple organizations, including utility-facing teams, data center and hardware engineering teams, compute and software teams, operations, finance, legal, and public policy teams to advance new concepts. Additionally, you will have a role in defining power generation designs and evaluating designs against AWS’ strict requirements for safety, availability, cost, and sustainability impacts. This may include equipment selection and sizing, conceptual design development, creating single line diagrams, specifications, and participate in project development. Your technical expertise on power systems will guide cross-functional teams in making critical design decisions, evaluating trade-offs, and managing technical risks across complex power systems. As a Principal Power Systems Engineer, you are a leader in your field, working within and overseeing the work of cross-functional teams that include: technical program management, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, control engineering, supply chain management, operations, end users, safety, and security. Amazon has a global presence, therefore, domestic and international travel may be necessary. Teamwork is absolutely necessary for us to accomplish our goals. You must be able to work within a team and collaborate with others to accomplish the required tasks. This includes working with internal groups as well as external suppliers and consultants, including utilities, manufacturers, vendors, and contractors.

Requirements

• 10+ years of experience with power systems and electrical design with at least 5 years in data centers or high availability, mission-critical applications
• Bachelor’s Degree in Electrical Engineering or equivalent experience
• In-depth knowledge of continuous operating redundant electrical systems and power infrastructure. This includes but is not limited to; uninterruptable power sources, medium and low voltage electrical switchgear, power distribution units, variable frequency drives, automatic/static transfer switches.
• Experience and knowledge of power generations equipment, systems, controls, including, but not limited to; diesel generators, distributed energy resources, gas turbines, battery energy storage systems.
• Extensive experience in electrical power design, including interpreting wiring diagrams, single and three-line diagrams, P&ID drawings, sequence of operations, and electrical drawing packages, failure mode analysis.
• Experience leading cross-functional technical teams and collaborating with multiple engineering disciplines
• Proficiency with electrical design tools and analysis software

Nice To Haves

• Master's degree or Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering or related field
• 15+ years of direct experience with the design, construction, operation, or maintenance of mission critical data centers or power infrastructure
• Licensed Professional Engineer
• Familiarity with power flow studies, substation design, protection coordination, and utility interconnection requirements, emerging power generation and energy storage technologies, and power distribution for large scale mission critical facilities
• System Matter Expert level of understanding of both electrical equipment and designs related to data centers and power generation equipment
• Experience with gathering, compiling, and analyzing data to identify availability and/or performance risks within the design and operations of critical power infrastructure, including an understanding of data analysis methodologies and statistical techniques.
• Ability to produce analyses that ensure data centers satisfy defined design requirements, including availability goals, power quality specifications, and predicted performance targets.
• Experience with developing solutions and executing plans on fast-track design/build projects and/or multiple significant upgrade projects
• Experience with commissioning and/or performance testing of critical infrastructure and the associated controls systems for mission critical environments
• Experience with scripting languages (e.g., Python, R), or statistical/mathematical software (e.g., R, SAS, Matlab, etc.) and machine learning or related optimization frameworks
• Possess excellent attention to detail and communication skills in order to maintain high quality standards for being organized, setting priorities, meeting deadlines, and staying within budgets
• Possess leadership and problem-solving skills

Responsibilities

• Understand current and emerging scalable power and energy technologies, and how to apply them to solve emerging challenges in power system design
• Understand current trends in data center power demands and grid integration of large loads
• Have a deep understanding of analytical methods for evaluating power demands throughout the data center architecture and means to maximize capacity and utilization
• Understand grid interconnection standards and requirements, including working on microgrid design and controls, and distributed energy resources
• Lead the team in developing test requirements to ensure solutions meet AWS’ high standards for quality and availability and set the expectation for quality in the engineering team
• Oversee and plan engineering goals for key initiatives that support future projects and growth and build engineering strategies. Conceive, initiate, and lead projects with widespread impact on infrastructure design, innovation, and implementation.
• Understand the design and functionality of the global data center fleet, including existing, upcoming, and unique site designs
• Provide input and direction to Data Center Engineering teams for design revisions for new data centers as well as to Field Engineering for operational data center upgrades to meet critical strategic requirements
• Demonstrate ability to review business cases and analysis models including Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) and Return on Investment (ROI) to select projects and designs
• Decompose complex problems or new technologies or topologies to distill underlying risks and benefits, and identify straightforward and actionable solutions to reduce risk
• Create and lead the development of power generation configurations for different applications, including primary, temporary, or backup power
• Work independently and have frequent reviews with business leadership, other Principal Engineers, and Sr Engineers across AWS
• Actively facilitate the escalation of low-level project and product issues to senior engineering and business leadership
• Work on concurrent projects in multiple geographical regions
• Be a leader within the group as well as within other teams. Actively grow and coach the engineering team through group forums and one-on-one coaching and mentoring to ensure development and promotion of the top engineers inside Amazon
• Be positive and offer creative, out of the box solutions
• Continuously learn, be curious about how things work, and be willing to test and push new ideas
• Have fun and work hard!

Benefits

• sign-on payments
• restricted stock units (RSUs)
• health insurance (medical, dental, vision, prescription, Basic Life & AD&D insurance and option for Supplemental life plans, EAP, Mental Health Support, Medical Advice Line, Flexible Spending Accounts, Adoption and Surrogacy Reimbursement coverage)
• 401(k) matching
• paid time off
• parental leave

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Principal