Microgrid Design Engineer

About the role

You will join a microgrid company designing resilient power systems for campuses, military bases, hospitals, and remote communities. The team owns system architecture, controls design, and commissioning for grids that island seamlessly when the utility fails. This role matters because your designs are what keep critical facilities powered through hurricanes, wildfires, and grid outages, and resilience only counts if it works on the worst day. You will design islandable systems from the ground up, sizing generation, storage, and controls so critical loads ride through grid outages seamlessly. The role spans controller selection and protection scheme design, since microgrids must coordinate protection in both grid-connected and islanded modes. You will navigate the regulatory gray zones around microgrids, from utility franchise questions to standby rate structures that make or break economics. Commissioning is where designs prove themselves, so your test plans will exercise every transition and failure mode before handover.

What you will achieve

• Deliver microgrid designs for 10 to 20 sites per year, each with validated islanding sequences and black-start procedures tested before handover
• Achieve seamless islanding transitions under 100 ms for critical loads through protection coordination and controller tuning, validated with hardware-in-the-loop testing before site commissioning
• Own generation mix optimization (solar, storage, gensets, fuel cells) balancing resilience targets against project economics
• Cut commissioning time by 25 percent with standardized test scripts for controller HIL testing, protection verification, and mode transitions, documented in sequence-of-operations narratives the operator can actually follow
• Drive utility coordination for interconnected microgrids, securing approvals for export, ride-through, and anti-islanding schemes

What you will bring

Must-haves

• 2 to 5 years of experience designing microgrids, backup power systems, or distributed generation plants
• Strong understanding of islanding, synchronization, load sharing, and black-start principles
• Proficiency with power systems modeling in ETAP or PSCAD for fault and stability analysis of islanded systems
• Working knowledge of NEC Articles 700, 701, 702, and 705 for emergency, standby, and interconnected power systems
• Familiarity with microgrid controllers, generator paralleling switchgear, and transfer schemes
• Ability to size generation and storage for resilience targets: hours of autonomy, critical load coverage, and fuel constraints
• Protection design skills for systems that must coordinate in both grid-connected and islanded modes

Nice-to-haves

• Experience with military (UFC) or healthcare (NFPA 110) resilience requirements
• Knowledge of cybersecurity requirements for microgrid control systems
• Exposure to controller hardware-in-the-loop testing
• EIT certification or progress toward a PE license
• Experience with microgrid controllers and protection relay coordination