Senior Manager, Advanced Grid and Controls Solutions

AES•Louisville, CO

5d•$173,000 - $216,750

About The Position

The Senior Manager of Advanced Grid and Controls Solutions leads a multidisciplinary engineering team responsible for defining, evaluating, validating, and deploying advanced grid-integration and control solutions across renewable, battery energy storage, hybrid, and microgrid applications. The role combines technical leadership, people management, portfolio prioritization, and direct support to projects and operating assets. The Senior Manager sets the team’s direction, establishes repeatable engineering methods, and ensures lessons from testing, commissioning, and operations improve plant architectures, controls requirements, equipment strategies, and project execution practices. The team’s technical scope includes grid-forming and grid-following inverter controls, plant power and energy-management controls, advanced power-electronics applications, system and control architectures, electromagnetic-transient modeling, controller and power hardware-in-the-loop testing, commissioning and witness testing, and complex event or control-interaction analysis. The role coordinates across project engineering, development, operations, performance engineering, interconnection, SCADA, OEMs, integrators, consultants, utilities, and customers. The position leads team strategy, technical roadmaps, resourcing, engineering processes, control architecture and requirements, technology evaluation, EMT studies, and validation programs. It also provides technical direction throughout development, design, testing, commissioning, and operations support, and translates findings into improved standards and equipment strategies. The expected salary at commencement is $173,000–$216,750 per year, with annual bonus and medical, dental, vision, life insurance, 401(k) eligibility, and paid time off.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering, power systems engineering, controls engineering, or a closely related field.
Substantial engineering experience in utility-scale renewable generation, battery energy storage, inverter-based resources, plant controls, microgrids, or adjacent power-system applications.
Demonstrated people-management experience, including work planning, prioritization, coaching, performance management, and development of technical professionals.
Strong knowledge of renewable and battery energy storage plant controls, inverter controls, grid-forming technology, plant power controllers, energy-management systems, and grid-integration fundamentals.
Experience with technology evaluation, technical diligence, model review, test planning, results interpretation, and translating findings into project or equipment decisions.
Working knowledge of EMT analysis and PSCAD-based studies, including ability to review study methods, assumptions, model behavior, results, and tuning recommendations.
Experience supporting commissioning, witness testing, field troubleshooting, event analysis, or operations response for complex power and controls systems.
Strong organization and project-management skills, including ability to manage concurrent initiatives and unplanned technical priorities.
Ability to lead through influence and coordinate outcomes across multidisciplinary, geographically distributed teams and external partners.
Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including documenting technical requirements and explaining complex topics to technical and business audiences.
Personable, service-oriented, and thoughtful leadership.

Nice To Haves

Master’s degree or PhD in power systems, controls, power electronics, or a related discipline.
Hands-on experience with grid-forming inverter applications, hybrid plant design, weak-grid integration, islanded systems, black start, or mission-critical-load microgrids.
Experience designing or using CHIL and PHIL testbeds, real-time digital simulators, EMT testbenches, and interface or sequence validation frameworks.
Familiarity with PSSE, PSLF, PowerFactory, MATLAB/Simulink, Python, or related power-system and data-analysis tools in addition to PSCAD.
Knowledge of applicable interconnection and inverter-based-resource requirements, such as IEEE 2800, NERC reliability standards for IBRs, regional grid-code requirements, and utility-specific model and testing expectations.
Experience working with inverter, PPC, EMS, SCADA, microgrid-controller, turbine-generator, or power-electronics OEMs and system integrators.
Experience developing technical specifications, statements of work, acceptance criteria, design-basis documents, and vendor evaluation frameworks.

Responsibilities

Lead, coach, and develop a multidisciplinary engineering team focused on grid integration, advanced controls, power electronics, EMT analysis, and microgrid solutions.
Set the team vision, annual priorities, technical roadmap, operating model, and resource plan in alignment with AES business, project, and technology-strategy needs.
Assign work, balance planned and emergent demands, establish ownership, and maintain visibility into scope, schedule, budget, dependencies, decisions, and technical risk.
Provide technical leadership to AES Commercial, Business Development, and Engineering teams during contract negotiations involving co-located systems, microgrids, advanced grid-connected services, and control systems.
Foster rigorous engineering, practical problem solving, collaboration, and continuous learning; provide feedback and support career development.
Develop scalable processes, templates, design criteria, test methods, technical reviews, and decision records.
Direct development and review of control philosophies, functional requirements, control authority matrices, sequences of operation, communications interfaces, and integrated plant-control architectures.
Guide solutions for grid-forming operation, weak-grid performance, islanding, seamless transfer, black start, load smoothing, frequency and voltage regulation, reactive-power control, state-of-charge management, and coordinated operation of generation and storage resources.
Ensure coordination among inverter-level controls, turbine or generator controls, plant power controllers, energy-management systems, microgrid controllers, SCADA, protection systems, and customer or utility interfaces.
Develop roadmaps for system integration, control architectures, and services for hybrid and co-located AES power plants serving large loads.
Provide technical leadership for conventional renewable and storage plants, hybrid and mission-critical-load architectures, and partially grid-connected or off-grid microgrids.
Translate grid-code, interconnection, utility, customer, and operational requirements into implementable controls and equipment requirements.
Lead evaluation of inverter, power-conversion, plant-controller, EMS, microgrid-controller, and related power-electronics technologies, including capability, limitations, interoperability, model quality, maturity, and deployment readiness.
Oversee EMT studies and model-based design, including controls-interaction, system-strength, ride-through, contingency, stability, black-start, islanding, and tuning assessments.
Define and oversee EMT testbenches, CHIL, and PHIL programs to validate controls, interfaces, sequences, and failure responses before site deployment.
Establish test objectives, acceptance criteria, traceability, issue-resolution workflows, and documented recommendations, and ensure results inform designs, specifications, procurement, and project risk decisions.
Partner with laboratories, OEMs, integrators, utilities, and consultants to obtain fit-for-purpose models and execute validation programs.
Provide engineering leadership during project development, detailed design, model validation, factory and site acceptance testing, commissioning, and utility or customer witness testing.
De-risk advanced or first-of-kind controls through early architecture definition, simulation, staged integration testing, and clear commissioning plans.
Coordinate team involvement and define roles and responsibilities across project teams during execution and on-site system integration testing.
Support operations and project teams in diagnosing complex grid, inverter, plant-controller, and controls interactions using event records, high-speed data, models, settings, and vendor evidence.
Lead root-cause and corrective-action efforts for significant controls or grid-performance issues, distinguishing equipment, settings, architecture, interface, model, and operating-condition contributors.
Convert field findings and commissioning lessons into updated engineering standards, model expectations, test protocols, controls requirements, and equipment-strategy recommendations.
Represent grid and controls requirements in equipment strategy, approved-product, supplier, contracting, and technology-roadmap discussions.
Provide evidence-based recommendations on product readiness, vendor capability, mitigations, and solution fit for specific applications.
Coordinate multidisciplinary teams to resolve trade-offs involving electrical design, controls performance, interconnection compliance, constructability, operability, reliability, schedule, and commercial objectives.
Build working relationships with engineering teams, project leaders, operations, development, commercial teams, strategic sourcing, legal and contracts, OEMs, EPCs, laboratories, and external technical advisors.
Communicate technical issues and decisions clearly to technical and executive audiences, including risks, options, assumptions, evidence, and recommended actions.