Technical Program Manager - EV Charging Platform OCPP & NET Core

Zero Impact Solutions•Santa Ana, CA

3d•Onsite

About The Position

Zero Impact Solutions is hiring a hands-on Technical Program Manager to own delivery of its cloud Charging Station Management System (CSMS), a .NET Core platform that connects and manages DC fast chargers and Level 2 stations from multiple manufacturers. The platform must operate reliably at scale over long-lived WebSocket connections and support OCPP 1.6J and 2.0.1. The role is accountable for the technical roadmap, delivery, interoperability, and field performance of the platform—not just project coordination. The manager will translate commercial, customer, utility, and regulatory needs into engineering milestones; lead planning, reviews, and release decisions; oversee OCPP implementation and charger certification; and partner with architects on scalable, reliable platform design. The position works across backend engineering, hardware and firmware partners, QA and certification, field operations, and commercial teams, and serves as a technical interface for manufacturers, CPOs, eMSPs, utilities, and enterprise fleet customers. The role also owns risk and incident management, release quality, platform KPIs, security and compliance workstreams, customer onboarding, vendor delivery, and operational documentation. It includes coordinating firmware campaigns and maintenance windows, coaching engineers and junior program managers, and maintaining integration guides, compatibility matrices, runbooks, and decision records. The position is in person at the Costa Mesa, California office, with an 8-hour Monday–Friday schedule. Compensation is $95,000–$120,000 per year.

Requirements

At least 7 years in technical program or engineering management roles delivering backend or IoT platforms.
At least 3 years in EV charging, energy, telematics, or connected-device systems.
Working fluency in OCPP 1.6J and 2.0.1, including reading message traces, diagnosing charger message issues, explaining the 2.0.1 transaction lifecycle, and describing Smart Charging profile behavior.
Strong understanding of .NET Core/C# backend systems, including ASP.NET Core, asynchronous programming, dependency injection, and microservice decomposition trade-offs.
Ability to participate effectively in technical design reviews; production coding is not required.
Hands-on experience with large-scale, WebSocket-based long-lived connection systems, 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 experience 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 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.

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 ecosystem.
Prior OCA certification delivery, plugfest participation, or experience running 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.
Experience with utility and grid programs, 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.
EV charging payments and billing experience, 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 its implications for bidirectional charging and DER integration.
PMP, PgMP, SAFe, or equivalent program management certification.

Responsibilities

Own the CSMS technical roadmap, defining 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 estimable engineering milestones.
Run quarterly planning, weekly program reviews, and release go/no-go decisions; communicate status, risks, and decisions to leadership.
Prioritize charger onboarding, customer integrations, protocol upgrades, and platform reliability with explicit trade-offs.
Oversee OCPP 1.6J and 2.0.1 implementation and conformance across supported profiles and functional blocks.
Own charger onboarding and certification, including manufacturer and firmware-version test matrices, interoperability plans, and field-deployment sign-off.
Maintain the known-deviations register and decide whether firmware deviations require a platform workaround, vendor fix, or declined support.
Lead the installed-base migration from OCPP 1.6J to 2.0.1, including dual-protocol operation, security upgrades, and firmware 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 able to handle concurrent WebSocket sessions, MeterValues ingestion, and transaction handling.
Set and enforce non-functional requirements for stability, latency, offline recovery, scalability, observability, and multi-region failover.
Review technical designs for protocol correctness, backward compatibility, and operational risk; ensure clean, versioned APIs for customer and partner systems.
Identify and mitigate compatibility risks, firmware bottlenecks, certificate expiry, and cross-team dependencies.
Lead protocol-related incident reviews, including root-cause analysis, corrective action, and roadmap changes where needed.
Define release quality standards, including automated OCPP conformance tests, charger-simulator load tests, staged rollouts, and rollback criteria.
Track and report charger uptime, session success, transaction reconciliation accuracy, charger 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.
Coordinate hardware certification and compliance workstreams, including UL/ETL, Energy Star, NEVI/CFI, utility make-ready, and demand-response requirements.
Own the OCPP 2.0.1 security program, including security profiles, certificate lifecycle management, secure firmware signing, and secure event logging.
Coordinate penetration tests and remediation and ensure the platform meets payment, privacy, and contractual security requirements.
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 with field operations for firmware campaigns and maintenance windows.
Maintain integration guides, charger compatibility matrices, runbooks, and decision logs.
Coach engineers and junior program managers on protocol fluency and structured problem solving.