Substation Automation Engineer - Grid Modernization
About the role
The role involves leading the transition of IEC 61850-based digital and virtual substations from pilot to production, designing and standardizing secure, vendor-agnostic substation automation architectures, serving as a technical leader, and collaborating with utilities, technology partners, and industry groups.
Responsibilities
Develop SCL engineering artifacts including ICD, CID, and SCD files, datasets, logical node mappings, reporting and control blocks, and GOOSE publications and subscriptions.
Configure and validate MMS, GOOSE, and SV messaging for protection, automation, monitoring, and SCADA applications.
Design and document station-bus and process-bus network architectures using PRP/HSR, VLANs, QoS, multicast management, and traffic segmentation practices.
Design deterministic real-time networking paths for time-sensitive protection and automation applications, incorporating latency budgeting, PTP timing performance, and behaviors defined for substation-class devices meeting IEC 61850-3 and IEEE 1613 environmental and EMC requirements.
Diagnose and optimize real-time network behavior through traffic-capture analysis, timing-accuracy evaluation, and system-level tuning techniques for time-critical digital-substation workloads.
Develop PTP-based time-synchronization architectures including grandmaster, boundary, and transparent clock configurations and incorporate timing considerations into the system design.
Integrate multi-vendor IEDs with protection settings and logic, coordinating measurements, controls, alarms, and event data with SCADA and HMI systems.
Apply IEC 61850 data-modeling concepts to confirm interoperability across mixed fleets of protection and control devices.
Incorporate cybersecurity principles into system architecture, including authentication, role-based access control, network segmentation, secure communications, and device hardening.
Develop and configure virtualized protection, HMI, gateway/RTU, and related substation applications on platforms including VMware ESXi with vCenter, vSAN, and NSX; Red Hat KVM or OpenShift Virtualization; and SEAPATH’s real-time, high-availability hypervisor platform designed to run virtualized protection, automation, and control workloads with deterministic performance and PTP-synchronized operation on industrial servers meeting IEC 61850-3 and IEEE 1613 criteria.
Contribute to, or develop toward contributing to, IEEE and IEC standards and collaborative initiatives related to IEC 61850, digital substations, time synchronization, and cybersecurity.
Support participation in technical bodies and industry groups such as IEC, IEEE, CIGRE, ISA99, and vPAC Alliance workstreams.
Support the advancement and practical application of virtualized protection, automation, and control concepts in alignment with the architectural direction established by the vPAC Alliance.
Produce engineering documentation including network specifications, SCL models, timing plans, interface definitions, and system diagrams used across design, laboratory validation, and field implementation.
Collaborate with project managers, technical leads, clients, and vendors to align designs with project goals, operational requirements, and industry best practices.
Qualifications
Bachelor's Degree in Engineering from a recognized accredited program in their home country or the country in which the professional is practicing.
Minimum of 5 years related work experience.
Familiarity with cybersecurity frameworks for operational technology environments, including secure communications and system-hardening practices.
Experience deploying or supporting virtualized protection, automation, and control applications on VMware ESXi/vCenter/vSAN/NSX, Red Hat KVM or OpenShift Virtualization, and SEAPATH’s real-time, high-availability hypervisor platform for vPAC workloads.
Experience deploying virtualized substation workloads on industrial servers certified to IEC 61850-3 and IEEE 1613 environmental and EMC requirements.
Familiarity with vPAC architectural principles and emerging practices for hosting protection, automation, and control systems on virtualized platforms.
Interest in or experience with virtualized protection, automation, and control concepts.
Professional Engineer (PE) License.
Skills
IEC 61850 Engineering & Modeling
Substation Networking & Time Synchronization
Protection, Automation & SCADA Integration
Cybersecurity & System Hardening
Virtualization of Substation Functions
Industry Engagement & Technical Leadership
Project Delivery & Collaboration
Benefits
Comprehensive benefits portfolio including medical, dental, vision, disability, and a robust wellness program. Flexible work schedules, paid vacation and holiday time, sick time, and dependent sick time are also available. Additional benefits include a company-matched 401k plan, adoption reimbursement, tuition reimbursement, vendor discounts, an employment referral program, AD&D insurance, pre-taxed accounts, voluntary legal plan, and the B&V Credit Union. Professionals may also be eligible for a performance-based bonus program.
Pay
Salary Plan
Schedule
Hybrid or flexible work options may be offered after the first 90 days of employment based upon manager discretion, job performance and work assignments.