Substation Electrical Engineer
The job description
Tech stack. Protective relaying, one-line and three-line diagrams, SCADA and RTU configuration, ETAP or SKM power studies, IEC 61850, substation grounding design, NERC awareness, relay test sets
About the role
You will design and support electrical substations at an engineering firm serving utilities and large industrial power users. Your work keeps the grid reliable: protection schemes that clear faults in milliseconds, control systems operators trust during storms, and designs that can be built and maintained safely for forty years. You will produce the drawings, perform the studies, develop the relay settings, and stand in the substation at commissioning making sure everything operates exactly as designed before energization. You will design protection schemes with proper coordination from feeder relays up through bus and transformer protection, verified by fault studies you perform yourself. You will also specify equipment with attention to seismic, environmental, and maintainability requirements that determine decades of reliable service. Your designs must integrate with utility SCADA and automation systems using standard protocols.
What you will achieve
- Deliver complete substation design packages: one-line diagrams, protection and control schematics, wiring diagrams, cable schedules, and bills of material, all ready for construction bidding.
- Develop protective relay settings validated by short-circuit and coordination studies, achieving selective fault clearing across all protection zones with documented margins.
- Commission substation control and SCADA integration, verifying every point from the RTU to the control center and every control function before energization day.
- Design substation grounding systems meeting IEEE 80 touch and step voltage criteria, confirmed by fall-of-potential measurement after construction.
- Support energization and troubleshoot commissioning issues decisively, resolving protection, control, or wiring problems quickly to keep project schedules intact.
What you will bring
Must-haves
- 2 to 5 years of substation, utility, or industrial power systems engineering experience.
- Strong understanding of protective relaying principles: overcurrent, differential, distance, and breaker failure schemes with their coordination.
- Ability to produce and check protection and control drawings to utility drafting standards.
- Experience with power system study software for short-circuit, load flow, and coordination analysis.
- Knowledge of substation equipment: circuit breakers, power transformers, CTs, PTs, and disconnect switches with their ratings.
- BS in Electrical Engineering, preferably with a power systems focus.
Nice-to-haves
- Familiarity with IEC 61850 and modern digital substation architectures including process bus.
- Experience with NERC compliance requirements or utility commissioning processes.
- PE license or active progress toward licensure.
- Hands-on relay testing experience with secondary injection test sets.
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