Senior GIS IT Engineer

Xcel Energy•Denver, CO

13d•Onsite

About The Position

Xcel Energy is seeking a Senior GIS IT Engineer to serve as a senior technical authority for our enterprise Geographic Information System (GIS) platform, built on the Esri ArcGIS technology stack. This role designs, deploys, administers, and optimizes GIS solutions that support electric and gas operations — including asset management, network modeling, outage response, engineering, and field operations. The Senior GIS IT Engineer leads platform modernization initiatives (such as migration to the Esri Utility Network), ensures the reliability, performance, and security of the GIS environment, and mentors junior engineers and analysts. The ideal candidate combines deep Esri expertise with strong software engineering discipline and a solid understanding of utility business processes.

Requirements

Ten years of related functional experience.
Bachelor's degree in Technology, Science, Business or related field, or 4 years of experience equivalent to the position.
Excellent communication skills, effective with varying organizational levels and skill set, and able to translate between technical and non-technical concepts.
Excellent Relationship Management and collaboration skills, with a track record of working as one team cross-organizationally to drive inovation and business results.
Expertise managing the lifecycle of technical solutions.
Deep Subject Matter Expertise within the respective system domain products, platforms, processes and architecture.
Broad and deep knowledge of technology architecture, infrastructure, network, security and software principles and models.
Experience working in partnership with internal and external vendors.
Excellent analytical, problem-solving and troubleshooting skills.
Extensive knowledge of future technology trends within area of expertise.
Demonstrated leadership on technical aspects of large scale projects.
Experience coaching other developers in system deployment or operational troubleshooting.
Experience with delivery methodologies (Waterfall, Agile, Scrum) and operational models (ITIL).
Experience and understanding of core IT Service Management functions, such as Change Management and Incident Management.

Nice To Haves

7+ years of GIS experience, including 5+ years administering Esri ArcGIS Enterprise in a production environment.
Deep expertise across the Esri stack: ArcGIS Enterprise, ArcGIS Pro, and ArcGIS Online.
Strong enterprise geodatabase administration on SQL Server or Oracle — versioning, replication, and performance tuning.
Proficiency with Python (arcpy / ArcGIS API for Python) and SQL for automation and data management.
Hands-on experience with the Esri Utility Network or geometric network modeling.
Solid GIS fundamentals: data models, coordinate systems, spatial analysis, and data-quality management.
Experience in the electric and/or gas utility industry.
Esri technical certifications (e.g., ArcGIS Enterprise Administration, Utility Network).
Experience with FME (Safe Software) for data interoperability and ETL.
Cloud experience (Microsoft Azure or AWS) hosting and scaling ArcGIS Enterprise.
Familiarity with OMS/ADMS and enterprise integration patterns (REST APIs, messaging/eventing).
Web development skills: JavaScript, the ArcGIS Maps SDK for JavaScript, and HTML/CSS.
ITIL, DevOps, or CI/CD experience; source control with Git.
Awareness of NERC CIP and other utility regulatory and compliance frameworks.

Responsibilities

Lead and support solution lifecycle technical activities.
Ensure solutions are designed for great user experience and operational performance.
Lead design, ensuring Enterprise Architecture, Security, Operations and Compliance aspects are continuously integrated into solutions.
Provide input to cost and schedule estimation.
Responsible for overall integrity of system design and operation.
Oversee vendor activities.
Conduct peer reviews and approve system changes and technical solution design.
Coach and mentor less experience team members.
Partner cross-organizationally to drive minimal costs on optimal solutions.
Provide in-depth technical information to stakeholders as needed.
Innovate through usage of industry emerging capabilities and evolving customer needs.
Provide input to strategic roadmap and technical dependencies.
Continuously stay current on, and apply, technical industry knowledge pertaining to the respective domain.
Review solution performance, and continually assess health of systems.
Track and drive awareness to operational and technical debt risks.
Provide escalated support to incident and problem management.
Utilize analytics to improve availability, reliability, efficiency and capacity.