Substation Automation Engineer

TAR•Austin, TX

5h•Onsite

About The Position

As an OT Engineer, you will build the network that runs the island, and the standard that makes the next island faster. You will configure the microgrid controller and SCADA to spec, design the OT network and communications architecture underneath them, integrate every vendor's equipment into one coherent point database, verify all of it point by point before the plant carries load, and then keep it running for the life of the site. When the island transitions modes at 3 a.m. with a data center on the other side of the bus, it works because you tested it.

Requirements

BSEE, controls engineering, or related STEM discipline. Equivalent field experience considered.
4+ years of IT/Network Engineering experience.
2+ years in industrial or utility controls in energy, utilities, or generation environments, with hands-on ownership of SCADA systems, RTU and gateway configuration, and the networks underneath them in an energized environment.
Protocol fluency at the packet level, not the datasheet level: Modbus, DNP3, IEC 61850 MMS and GOOSE.
Deep experience with Wireshark, Triangle MicroWorks, ASE-2000, IEDScout.
Hardened industrial networking: managed switching, fiber and loss budgets, ring and parallel redundancy, VLAN and QoS design, precision time distribution.
Experience delivering telemetry and remote monitoring at scale, and integrating RTUs, substations, and field devices into a coherent operational picture.
Able to read a one-line, a three-line, and an AC/DC schematic, and to say out loud what a mismapped control point will physically do to a breaker.

Nice To Haves

Direct islanded, off-grid, or BTM microgrid commissioning experience.
DERMS or distributed energy resource coordination, and renewable plus BESS integration projects.
Hardware-in-the-loop validation of microgrid or inverter controls.
Historian and time-series depth (AVEVA PI, Canary, Ignition), including one-way OT-to-cloud data architecture.
Data center facility controls exposure: BMS, DCIM, or hyperscale commissioning.
OT cyber security programme experience, or GICSP, ISA/IEC 62443, or comparable credentials.
Test-like-you-fly culture (Tesla Energy, Fluence, SEL, Emerson, or comparable) where validation rigor is the norm.

Responsibilities

Define and implement the OT communications strategy.
Make decisions on (PRP/HSR, MRP, RSTP), VLAN segmentation and QoS, and time synchronization (PTP, IRIG-B, NTP).
Engineer every communication path against its latency budget.
Know which functions should be on Modbus, IEC 61850 GOOSE, and which belong on a hardwired contact.
Make sure Fast load shed and unplanned-island responses are fast.
Own multi-vendor protocol integration.
Interface control documents and point lists for PV inverters, BESS PCS and BMS, gensets, switchgear, relays, metering, etc.
Ensure Cybersecurity during the design phase and during operation.
Commission it, then own it, and lead the workstream.
Provide the technical direction that OEM and integrator controls teams build against.