Careers · Power Systems
Director, Protection Engineering
Heads the protection division, owns the protection standard and leads PRC-028-1 delivery across the fleet.
About the role
What this role is for.
Half of a ride-through or compliance study is knowing what is actually at the plant: every relay's 27 and 59 elements, whether an inverter trips on rate of change of frequency, what the plant controller really does. Protection is where that truth lives. PRC-028-1 now requires generator owners to install and validate disturbance monitoring across the fleet, and NOGRR 255 does the same in ERCOT. Asset owners have hundreds of plants to get through and very few protection engineers.
You will head GridStrong's protection division. You own the protection standard: how settings are collected, extracted from relay files into the Dashboard, reviewed and signed. You lead PRC-028-1 delivery across every customer fleet, you lead the settings reviews that feed PRC-029-2 and MQT work, and you grow the team of protection engineers doing it.
Team: Power Systems
Level: Director
Location: Remote, United States or Canada
Works with: The VP of Power Systems, the protection engineers, Generation Studies and ISO Studies, Compliance Services, Power Systems Engineering, and the protection, compliance and plant engineering staff at generation owners.
What you will do
- Own the protection standard: the review checklist, the settings data model in the Dashboard and the evidence a compliance auditor will accept.
- Lead PRC-028-1 and NOGRR 255 delivery: disturbance monitoring gap assessments, equipment specification, settings validation and evidence packages, plant by plant.
- Lead protection settings reviews for inverter-based plants: relay settings, inverter and turbine protection tiers, PPC trip logic and coordination with the PRC-029-2 and NOGRR 245 ride-through curves.
- Review and sign protection deliverables as the senior protection engineer and engineer of record.
- Define, with Power Systems Engineering, which settings extraction and review steps become automated workflows.
- Hire and lead the protection engineers and hold their client load within the two to six client band.
- Support Generation Studies and ISO Studies when a model's protection representation does not match the plant.
What we are looking for
- Twelve or more years in protection engineering at a utility, generation owner, OEM or consultancy, including settings development and review.
- Deep hands-on experience with SEL, GE and ABB relays, settings files and coordination tools.
- Working knowledge of NERC PRC-028-1, PRC-029-2 and PRC-030-1 and the ERCOT NOGRR 245 and 255 requirements as they apply to inverter-based resources.
- Experience leading protection engineers and setting a review standard.
- Professional Engineer license in a US state or Canadian province.
- Able to explain protection trade-offs to a compliance manager and a plant operator in plain language.
Nice to have
- Experience modeling protection in PSCAD or PSS®E for ride-through studies.
- Experience with disturbance monitoring equipment selection and commissioning.
- Prior NERC audit or spot check experience as the protection subject matter expert.
The first 90 days
- You have reviewed the open PRC-028-1 programs and the protection review backlog and own the delivery plan.
- The protection standard is written and in use in the Dashboard by the protection engineers.
- You have signed your first protection deliverables and set the review bar for the division.
- Power Systems Engineering has your ranked list of protection steps to automate.
Other roles
More open roles in Power Systems.
Apply for this role
Send a note and whatever shows your work best to careers@gridstrong.ai. Tell us what you would want to build first. We read every note and reply within a week.