Technical Program Manager - EV Charging Platform OCPP & NET Core

Zero Impact Solutions•Costa Mesa, CA

3d•$95,000 - $120,000•Onsite

About The Position

The Technical Program Manager owns delivery of the company's cloud Charging Station Management System (CSMS), a .NET Core platform used to operate DC fast chargers and Level 2 charging stations. The platform must interoperate reliably with chargers from multiple manufacturers and firmware versions over long-lived WebSocket connections, support accurate billing, and conform to OCPP 1.6J and 2.0.1. This is a hands-on technical program role involving protocol logs, architecture reviews, vendor deviations, and translation of utility, regulatory, and customer requirements into deliverable engineering milestones. The role is accountable for the platform roadmap and field interoperability. The position works across backend engineering, hardware and firmware partners, QA and certification, field operations, and commercial teams. It serves as the primary technical interface to charger manufacturers, charge point operators, e-mobility service providers, utilities, and enterprise fleet customers. The role leads the CSMS roadmap and release process; charger onboarding, certification, and OCPP migration; architecture and quality partnership; risk and incident management; vendor and customer engagements; security and compliance work; and program documentation and team coaching. The position is based in person at the Costa Mesa, California office, with an eight-hour Monday-through-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 reading message traces, identifying common message 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; production coding is not required, but design-review fluency is.
Hands-on experience with large-scale, WebSocket-based long-lived connection systems, including reconnection, message ordering, idempotency, and offline queuing.
Cloud platform experience, preferably Azure; AWS is acceptable. Experience should include managed Kubernetes or container services, message brokers, managed databases, and observability tooling.
Demonstrated delivery of multi-quarter programs with hardware dependencies, including 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.

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 Plug & Charge 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 configurations, 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.
EV charging payments and billing experience, including credit-card terminals, pre-authorization, EMV, and kWh-based 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, including scope, phase gates, success criteria, release cadence, and alignment with commercial commitments and regulatory deadlines.
Translate business, customer, and regulatory requirements into engineering epics, acceptance criteria, and milestones.
Run quarterly planning, weekly program reviews, release go/no-go decisions, and leadership reporting on status, risks, and decisions.
Prioritize charger onboarding, customer integrations, protocol upgrades, and platform reliability with explicit trade-offs.
Oversee implementation and conformance of OCPP 1.6J and 2.0.1 across supported profiles and functional blocks.
Own the charger onboarding program, including manufacturer and firmware certification matrices, interoperability test plans, and approval for field deployment.
Maintain the known-deviations register and decide whether vendor firmware deviations require a platform workaround, vendor fix, or declined support.
Lead migration of the installed base from OCPP 1.6J to 2.0.1, 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 large numbers of concurrent WebSocket sessions, MeterValues ingestion, and transaction handling.
Set and enforce non-functional requirements for connection stability, message latency, offline transaction recovery, scalability, observability, and multi-region failover.
Review technical designs for protocol correctness, backward compatibility, and operational risk before implementation.
Ensure clean, versioned platform APIs for customer portals, mobile apps, fleet-management systems, payment processors, and OCPI partners.
Identify and mitigate hardware-to-cloud compatibility risks, firmware update bottlenecks, certificate expiry, and cross-team dependencies.
Lead protocol-related incident reviews, including root-cause analysis, corrective actions, and roadmap changes when needed.
Define release quality bars, including automated OCPP conformance tests, charger-simulator load tests, staged rollouts, and rollback criteria.
Track and report platform KPIs, including charger uptime, session success, transaction reconciliation accuracy, charger-model onboarding time, and firmware campaign completion.
Serve as 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 technical onboarding for large customer 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 to support LCFS and utility incentive reporting.
Run the release train, including sprint rituals, release notes, change management, and field coordination for 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, and improve shared understanding of charger behavior in the field.