Senior Manager, Advanced Grid and Controls Solutions

AES US•Louisville, CO

About The Position

The Senior Manager of Advanced Grid and Controls Solutions leads an 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 team 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 work spans 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 technical evaluation and validation, supports project development through commissioning and operations, and represents grid and controls requirements in equipment and supplier strategy. The expected salary at commencement is $173,000–$216,750 per year, with annual bonus eligibility. AES offers medical, dental, and vision coverage, life insurance, 401(k) eligibility, and paid time off, including vacation, sick leave, and parental leave. The position is at-will. Applications are due by 12/04/2026.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering, power systems engineering, controls engineering, or a closely related field; an advanced degree is strongly preferred.
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.
Personable, service-oriented, and thoughtful leadership approach.
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; 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 managing 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.

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 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 Commercial, Business Development, and Engineering teams during contract negotiations involving co-located systems, microgrids, advanced grid-connected services, and control systems.
Promote 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 advanced system integration, control architectures, and services for hybrid, co-located power plants serving large loads.
Provide technical leadership for renewable and storage plants, hybrid and mission-critical-load architectures, and partially grid-connected and 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 capabilities, 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 project-specific controls, interfaces, sequences, and failure responses before site deployment.
Establish test objectives, acceptance criteria, traceability, issue-resolution workflows, and documented recommendations; ensure results inform designs, specifications, procurement, and project risk decisions.
Partner with laboratories, OEMs, integrators, utilities, and consultants to obtain suitable models and execute credible 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 roles across broader project teams throughout execution and on-site system integration testing.
Support operations and project teams diagnosing 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, identifying 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, required mitigations, and control-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 to technical and executive audiences, including risks, options, assumptions, evidence, and recommended actions.