Senior Engineer, Inverters

AES Clean Energy•Salt Lake, UT

About The Position

The Senior Engineer, Inverters supports, improves, and optimizes the operational performance of AES Clean Energy’s utility-scale PV inverter fleet across the United States. Reporting to the AES CE Manager of Technical Services, the role provides technical expertise, performance analysis, and process support. The engineer leads projects to improve asset performance and reliability and reduce inverter-related operations and maintenance costs. The work includes troubleshooting emerging events and providing real-time support to field operations personnel, as well as advancing longer-term improvement projects. The role also evaluates inverter technologies and proposed equipment settings, supports due diligence for new opportunities, and develops plans for maintaining, updating, or replacing equipment—including for older assets and PV sites approaching the end of their useful life. The engineer collaborates with performance and reliability engineers and supports O&M teams through procedures, training, and optimization initiatives.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in engineering or an equivalent technical field from an accredited college or university.
3–5 years of professional experience in one or more of the following areas: high-voltage design or engineering, solar design, battery energy storage, substations, relay settings, HV/MV utility equipment, maintenance or operations, NERC compliance, civil or structural engineering, power system studies or modeling, SCADA integration, transmission, site development, solar inverters, or structures.
Innovative approach and strong troubleshooting skills.
Flexibility and ability to organize, prioritize, execute, and follow up on multiple concurrent duties and adapt to changing business priorities.
Ability to build trust through relationships and demonstration of capabilities.
Strong coaching skills and safety awareness.
Proficiency in process improvement, business performance, and inverter/power electronics systems.
Strong interpersonal skills, including the ability to maintain calm and effective exchanges among parties.
Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
Willingness and ability to travel up to 35%.
Proficiency in Microsoft Office, including Project and Visio.
Planning and project management skills for managing multiple change efforts.

Nice To Haves

Familiarity with data acquisition systems and SCADA systems.

Responsibilities

Provide engineering support for troubleshooting, testing, and maintaining electrical equipment and controls for the AES Clean Energy inverter fleet.
Coordinate with reliability and performance engineers on improvement technologies for the inverter fleet.
Share and apply lessons learned and benchmarking from AES and other industry leaders.
Monitor inverter technology and safety-system innovations and recommend appropriate options to project design teams.
Perform technical and operational due diligence and develop O&M cost assumptions for evaluations of new inverter opportunities in US markets.
Develop and lead technical projects to enhance asset performance and operations.
Conduct root cause analyses for ad hoc and chronic asset incidents, following established procedures, and develop recovery plans based on findings.
Implement Management of Change (MoC) processes and Asset Management Standards (AMS).
Develop preventive maintenance procedures based on OEM manuals in collaboration with performance and reliability engineers.
Assist in developing standard operating procedures and training for O&M teams.
Lead optimization efforts using AES APEX and Lean Six Sigma approaches and tools.
Develop strategies for transitioning older assets from current designs to newer designs.
Evaluate proposed inverter equipment settings changes for grid interconnection, performance, and safety implications.
Recommend when equipment should be updated or replaced, including recommendations for inverter equipment for PV site repowering at end of life.
Provide real-time support to operations field personnel and troubleshoot emerging events.