Technical Program Manager - EV Charging Platform OCPP & NET Core

Zero Impact Solutions•Santa Ana, CA

3d•$95,000 - $120,000•Onsite

About The Position

Zero Impact Solutions is hiring a Technical Program Manager to own delivery of its cloud Charging Station Management System (CSMS), a .NET Core platform supporting DC fast chargers and Level 2 stations from multiple manufacturers. The platform must maintain reliable, large-scale communication over long-lived WebSocket connections, support accurate billing, and comply with OCPP 1.6J and 2.0.1. This is a hands-on technical program role involving protocol logs, architecture reviews, firmware-deviation decisions, and translating utility, regulatory, and customer requirements into engineering milestones. The role is accountable for the CSMS roadmap, delivery, and interoperability in the field. The position works across backend engineering, firmware and hardware partners, QA and certification, field operations, and commercial teams. It is the primary technical interface for charger manufacturers, charge point operators, e-mobility service providers, and enterprise fleet customers. The role owns program strategy and roadmap; OCPP implementation, conformance, interoperability, charger onboarding, and protocol migration; engineering partnership and platform requirements; risk, dependency, and quality management; vendor and customer relationships; security and compliance; and release and operational processes. Responsibilities include setting release criteria, overseeing certification and testing, managing deviations and incidents, defining platform KPIs, coordinating security and compliance work, and maintaining program documentation. The role also coaches engineers and junior program managers on protocol fluency and structured problem solving. Success is expected to include mapping the CSMS architecture and protocol issues, establishing live risk and deviations registers, and shipping a release within the first 90 days; approving and beginning an OCPP 2.0.1 migration and improving charger onboarding within six months; and meeting uptime and session-success targets, certifying new charger models, and establishing trusted roadmap and release processes within 12 months. This is an in-person office position in Costa Mesa, California, with an 8-hour Monday–Friday schedule. Candidates must reliably commute or plan to relocate before starting.

Requirements

At least 7 years in technical program or engineering management roles delivering backend or IoT platforms, including at least 3 years in EV charging, energy, telematics, or connected-device systems.
Working fluency in OCPP 1.6J and 2.0.1, including interpreting message traces, diagnosing BootNotification, Heartbeat, or StatusNotification issues, explaining the 2.0.1 Transaction lifecycle, and describing Smart Charging profile stacking.
Strong understanding of .NET Core/C# backend systems, including ASP.NET Core, asynchronous programming, dependency injection, and microservice decomposition trade-offs.
Hands-on experience with WebSocket-based, long-lived connection systems at scale, including reconnection, message ordering, idempotency, and offline queuing.
Cloud platform experience with Azure preferred or AWS acceptable, including managed Kubernetes or container services, message brokers, managed databases, and observability tooling.
Demonstrated record of shipping multi-quarter programs with hardware dependencies, vendor management, and certification or compliance gates.
Structured risk-management skills, including maintaining a live register, quantifying impact, and escalating early with options.
Clear written and verbal communication for technical, executive, and customer procurement audiences.
Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.
Ability to reliably commute to or relocate to Costa Mesa, California before starting.

Nice To Haves

OCPI 2.2.1 roaming integrations with eMSPs and roaming hubs such as Hubject or Gireve, including tariff, CDR, and session modules.
ISO 15118-2/-20 and Plug & Charge experience, including certificate pools, contract certificates, and the CSMS role in the PnC ecosystem.
Prior delivery against OCA certification, including plugfest participation or operating a lab with charger simulators and test tools.
DC fast charging hardware knowledge, including power modules, dispenser/cabinet splits, CCS1 and NACS (SAE J3400) connectors, dynamic power sharing, and load management.
Utility and grid-program experience, including OpenADR demand response, managed charging tariffs, demand subscription rates, and interconnection or make-ready processes.
Familiarity with NEVI/CFI uptime and reporting requirements, state incentive programs, and LCFS or similar clean-fuel credit reporting dependent on metering accuracy.
Experience with EV charging payments and billing, including credit card terminals, pre-authorization, EMV, and kWh- versus time-based pricing.
Experience with Azure IoT Hub, Service Bus or Event Hubs, Kafka, Redis, PostgreSQL or SQL Server, and time-series meter-data storage.
Fleet depot charging experience, including schedule-driven charging, vehicle telematics integration, and commercial fleet uptime SLAs.
Awareness of OCPP 2.1 and implications for bidirectional charging and DER integration.
PMP, PgMP, SAFe, or equivalent program management certification.

Responsibilities

Own the CSMS technical roadmap, including program scope, phase gates, success criteria, release cadence, and alignment with commercial commitments and regulatory deadlines.
Translate business, customer, and regulatory requirements into epics, acceptance criteria, and engineering milestones.
Run quarterly planning, weekly program reviews, and release go/no-go decisions; communicate status, risks, and decisions to leadership.
Prioritize competing demands across charger onboarding, customer integrations, protocol upgrades, and platform reliability.
Oversee implementation and conformance of OCPP 1.6J and 2.0.1 across supported profiles and functional blocks.
Own charger onboarding, certification matrices, interoperability test plans, and approval of charger models for field deployment.
Maintain a register of vendor firmware deviations and determine whether to implement workarounds, request vendor fixes, or decline support.
Lead the OCPP 1.6J-to-2.0.1 migration plan, including dual-protocol operation, security upgrades, and firmware rollout sequencing.
Coordinate OCA plugfest participation and third-party conformance testing; track OCPP 2.1 and ISO 15118-20 readiness.
Partner with .NET Core architects on event-driven microservices for concurrent WebSocket connections, MeterValues ingestion, and transaction handling.
Set and enforce non-functional requirements for connection stability, latency, offline recovery, scalability, observability, and multi-region failover.
Review technical designs for protocol correctness, backward compatibility, and operational risk.
Ensure the platform exposes clean, versioned APIs for customer portals, mobile apps, fleet systems, payment processors, and OCPI partners.
Identify and mitigate hardware-cloud compatibility risks, firmware update bottlenecks, certificate expiry, and cross-team dependencies.
Own protocol-related incident reviews, including root-cause analysis, corrective action, and roadmap changes where needed.
Define release quality bars, including automated OCPP conformance tests, charger-simulator load tests, and staged rollouts with rollback criteria.
Track and report charger uptime, session success, transaction reconciliation accuracy, charger-model onboarding time, and firmware campaign completion.
Serve as the primary technical interface for charger manufacturers, firmware vendors, utilities, CPOs, eMSPs, and enterprise fleet customers.
Negotiate technical scope, timelines, and acceptance criteria with vendors; monitor delivery and escalate delays with evidence.
Lead customer-facing technical onboarding for large deployments, including integration design, cutover plans, pilot acceptance, and hypercare.
Drive hardware certification and compliance workstreams, including UL/ETL listing, Energy Star, NEVI/CFI requirements, utility make-ready, and demand-response integrations.
Own the OCPP 2.0.1 security program, including security profiles 1–3, certificate lifecycle management, secure firmware signing, and secure event logging.
Ensure the platform meets payment, data privacy, and contractual security requirements; coordinate penetration testing and remediation.
Maintain audit-grade metering, transaction, and firmware-version records for LCFS and utility incentive reporting.
Run the release train, including sprint rituals, release notes, change management, and coordination of firmware campaigns and maintenance windows.
Build and maintain integration guides, charger compatibility matrices, runbooks, and decision logs.
Coach engineers and junior program managers on protocol fluency and structured problem solving.