Protection & Controls Design Supervisor

Position Summary

The Protection & Control Design Supervisor is a working supervisor responsible for performing, coordinating, and overseeing protection and control engineering and design activities for transmission, distribution, substation, and generation interconnection projects. This position combines hands-on technical design responsibilities with team leadership, quality oversight, workload coordination, and employee development.

Essential Duties And Responsibilities

• Perform and oversee protection and control design activities for transmission, distribution, substation, and generation interconnection projects.

• Develop and review protection and control drawings, including:

  • Single-line and three-line diagrams
  • AC and DC schematics
  • Protection logic diagrams
  • Elementary and wiring diagrams
  • Control panel layouts
  • Cable schedules
  • Interconnection diagrams
  • Communications and SCADA interface drawings
  • Equipment connection and termination details

• Evaluate and apply appropriate protective relay, control, automation, metering, communications, and monitoring technologies.

• Support the preparation and review of relay settings, protection coordination studies, logic equations, settings calculations, and associated design documentation.

• Coordinate protection and control requirements with physical substation, civil, structural, electrical, telecommunications, SCADA, and system planning disciplines.

• Review vendor drawings, equipment data, technical specifications, and submittals for compliance with project requirements.

• Develop bills of material, equipment specifications, design packages, construction documents, and technical procurement information.

• Perform field walkdowns, site investigations, data collection, and existing-condition assessments as required.

• Support brownfield modifications by identifying existing system interfaces, outage constraints, constructability considerations, and cutover requirements.

• Provide technical support during construction, testing, commissioning, energization, and project closeout.

• Assist with troubleshooting protection system issues, equipment failures, relay operations, and system events.

• Design leadership and quality control:

  • Establish design approaches, technical expectations, work priorities, and deliverable requirements for assigned projects.
  • Perform independent technical reviews of drawings, calculations, relay applications, design packages, and other engineering deliverables.
  • Verify that designs are accurate, complete, constructible, coordinated, and compliant with applicable codes, standards, client requirements, and internal procedures.
  • Maintain consistency in protection and control design practices across projects.
  • Develop, implement, and maintain design standards, templates, checklists, procedures, and quality-control practices.
  • Identify technical risks, design conflicts, scope gaps, and constructability issues early in the project lifecycle.
  • Provide technical guidance and resolve complex design issues in coordination with project and engineering leadership.
  • Promote lessons learned, standardization, continuous improvement, and effective use of design technology.
  • Maintain awareness of developments in protective relaying, substation automation, communications, cybersecurity, and power delivery design practices.

• Supervisory Responsibilities:

  • Provide day-to-day technical direction and oversight for assigned design technicians as the team grows.
  • Plan, assign, coordinate, and monitor work to support project schedules, priorities, and quality requirements.
  • Balance supervisory responsibilities with the performance of hands-on protection and control design work.
  • Review employee work products and provide timely, constructive technical feedback.
  • Coach and mentor employees in protection and control design practices, software tools, standards, and project execution.
  • Support employee onboarding, training, development planning, and career progression.
  • Establish performance expectations and participate in performance evaluations, recognition, corrective action, and other personnel processes.
  • Assess team workload and resource requirements and communicate staffing needs to the Senior Program Manager.
  • Support the recruitment, interviewing, and selection of future design team members.
  • Promote a collaborative, accountable, safety-focused, and quality-driven work environment.

• Project Execution and Coordination:

  • Coordinate protection and control design activities with project managers, engineers, designers, clients, contractors, vendors, utilities, and field personnel.
  • Assist in developing project scopes, schedules, staffing plans, budgets, estimates, and design-hour forecasts.
  • Monitor assigned work for compliance with project scope, schedule, budget, and quality expectations.
  • Communicate project status, technical risks, resource needs, and potential schedule or budget impacts to project leadership.
  • Participate in project kickoff meetings, design reviews, client meetings, coordination meetings, and construction support discussions.
  • Review client standards, utility requirements, interconnection requirements, and project-specific design criteria.
  • Support proposal development, level-of-effort estimates, technical approaches, and project planning activities.
  • Absorb contractor and consultant coordination and review third-party design deliverables when required.
  • Maintain organized project records, calculations, design decisions, correspondence, and revision documentation.
  • Support multiple concurrent projects and adjust priorities in response to changing business and project needs.

• Safety and Compliance:

  • Perform work in accordance with applicable company safety policies, client requirements, and regulatory standards.
  • Incorporate safety, operability, maintainability, and constructability considerations into protection and control designs.
  • Follow applicable engineering and design standards, including relevant IEEE, ANSI, NERC, FERC, NEC, NESC, OSHA, utility, client, and company requirements.
  • Support compliance activities associated with protection system maintenance, relay performance, documentation, and reliability requirements when applicable.
  • Participate in field activities in accordance with substation access, personal protective equipment, job briefing, and energized-facility requirements.
  • Promote a culture in which safety, quality, ethical conduct, and regulatory compliance are integral to project execution.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor of Science degree in Engineering, Engineering Technology, or a closely related technical discipline from an accredited institution.
• Minimum of five years of progressively responsible experience in protection and control engineering or design within the electric utility, power delivery, consulting engineering, or related industry.
• Demonstrated experience supporting transmission, distribution, substation, or generation interconnection projects.
• Working knowledge of protection and control design principles, protective relay applications, control systems, and substation equipment.
• Experience developing or reviewing protection and control drawings and design packages.
• Ability to interpret electrical drawings, equipment specifications, relay documentation, utility standards, and technical requirements.
• Experience coordinating work across engineering, design, project management, construction, commissioning, and operations functions.
• Strong technical judgment and the ability to identify and resolve design issues.
• Effective written and verbal communication skills.
• Strong organizational skills and the ability to manage priorities across multiple projects.
• Ability to provide technical direction, coaching, and constructive feedback to design personnel.
• Proficiency with standard office productivity and document-management applications.
• Ability to travel up to 15% to project sites, client offices, utility facilities, and other business locations.

Preferred Qualifications

• Degree concentration in Electrical Engineering, Electrical Engineering Technology, Power Systems, or a related discipline.
• Experience serving as a technical lead, discipline lead, project lead, or working supervisor.
• Experience supervising, mentoring, or reviewing the work of engineering or design personnel.
• Experience with transmission, distribution, substation, and generation interconnection projects across multiple voltage classes.
• Experience with protective relay settings, short-circuit analysis, coordination studies, and event analysis.
• Familiarity with relay and protection platforms produced by SEL or other major protection equipment manufacturers.
• Experience with protection analysis and design software such as ASPEN OneLiner, ETAP, CAPE, AcSELerator, or comparable applications.
• Experience with AutoCAD, MicroStation, or other electrical design and drafting platforms.
• Familiarity with SCADA, RTUs, substation communications, IEC 61850, sequence-of-events recording, automation, and utility cybersecurity requirements.
• Experience supporting brownfield substation modifications, outages, cutovers, testing, commissioning, or energization activities.
• Professional Engineer licensure or the ability to pursue professional licensure, where applicable to the position.
• Knowledge, Skills, and Competencies:
  • Strong knowledge of power system protection and control concepts.
  • Understanding of protection schemes for lines, transformers, buses, feeders, generators, and other electrical equipment.
  • Ability to translate engineering requirements into complete, accurate, and constructible design documents.
  • Knowledge of utility design practices, substation equipment, control power systems, and protection system interfaces.
  • Strong attention to detail and commitment to technical quality.
  • Ability to lead through influence while maintaining hands-on responsibility for project deliverables.
  • Ability to delegate work appropriately and hold team members accountable for results.
  • Sound decision-making and problem-solving skills.
  • Ability to communicate technical information clearly to technical and nontechnical stakeholders.
  • Client-focused approach and ability to build effective working relationships.
  • Commitment to employee development, collaboration, continuous improvement, and operational excellence.
  • Ability to work independently while contributing effectively within a multidisciplinary team environment.