Protection and Controls Engineering Manager

American Electric Power•Roanoke, VA

3d•Onsite

About The Position

The Protection and Controls Engineering Manager leads a high-performing protection and control engineering team responsible for scoping, designing, and engineering equipment and protection schemes to expand the electric grid and maintain grid safety, reliability, and compliance. The manager serves as the technical authority and people leader, ensuring timely, high-quality P&C deliverables across projects while partnering with stakeholders and mentoring engineers. The role is accountable for engineering, design, and support of facilities from 12kV through 765kV. The manager oversees P&C engineering execution across generation, transmission, and substation projects, including design, material specification, procurement, relay settings, coordination studies, fault analysis, and investigation of protection events. The position is on-site in Roanoke, Virginia.

Requirements

Bachelor's degree in Engineering from an ABET-accredited college or university.
At least 10 years of electric utility engineering experience.
At least 6 years of experience in the design, construction, and operation of protection and control systems.
Demonstrated experience leading technical teams and managing engineering deliverables.
Proficiency with protection relay platforms, settings tools, and ASPEN or equivalent fault study software.
Strong knowledge of NERC reliability standards and their practical implementation for protection systems.
Effective communication and stakeholder management skills.

Nice To Haves

Registration as a Professional Engineer in any U.S. state is preferred.

Responsibilities

Oversee, mentor, and provide career coaching for P&C engineering staff.
Manage the quality and deliverables of the P&C design team for the assigned project portfolio.
Review and approve protection schematics, relay settings, wiring diagrams, testing documentation, and bills of material.
Manage P&C-specific quality control issues and coordinate with stakeholders, construction teams, and protection technicians to resolve design and field issues.
Implement countermeasures to prevent recurring design and settings issues, maintain lessons learned, and update standards.
Provide technical oversight for protection and control equipment on regional facilities, emphasizing protection schemes and interface requirements.
Represent P&C engineering on complex station technical matters and at stakeholder meetings, and provide technical direction to P&C counterparts across regions.
Ensure consistent implementation of compliance policies and P&C standards for settings, drawings, and testing.
Scope P&C work and provide technical support across generation, transmission, and substation projects.
Execute engineering, design, material specification, and procurement for an assigned capital project portfolio.
Lead settings and coordination studies, including relay settings, time-current coordination, breaker duty, reclosing, and sensitive ground protection, and produce relay setting and configuration files.
Perform fault analysis and maintain ASPEN fault study cases across the NERC region, coordinating with system modeling teams to ensure accurate models.
Lead investigations of suspected relay misoperations and protection-related events, develop root-cause analyses, and implement corrective actions.