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About the Role
We are hiring a Principal Power Systems Control Engineer to design and deliver the Control and Protection (C&P) systems at the core of American Terawatt's HVDC terminals and transmission network. You will work directly with the CTO, power systems engineering team, OEMs, and key consultants, taking ownership of C&P architecture, real-time controls software, validation, and commissioning. This is a hands-on technical leadership role for someone who wants to own the C&P platform for a new transmission network, deployed on gigawatt-scale power systems. This is currently a senior individual contributor role, with the opportunity to build a controls team and grow into broader technical ownership as the company scales. You will report directly to the CTO.
Responsibilities
- Own end-to-end C&P design for our terminals and transmission systems, from protection philosophy through deployed controls, partnering with OEMs, in-house engineers, and key consultants to drive major architecture changes.
- Architect and own the development, testing, deployment, and maintenance of control systems software deployed to OEM and American Terawatt’s hardware.
- Work closely with the power systems engineering team to co-design transmission systems and components to serve the HVDC transmission network.
- Develop simulation and physical testing platforms to verify performance and robustness of control systems before deployment at scale.
- Lead in-situ commissioning of controls software for deployments.
- Define and own the team’s controls software development practices, including CI/CD pipelines, version control workflows, issue tracking, testing standards, and design review processes.
Requirements
- Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering or a related field.
- 15+ years architecting and delivering control systems in safety-critical domains (electric utility, aerospace, robotics, EV, or similar).
- Strong control theory fundamentals: feedback/feedforward control, state estimation, and stability analysis of cascaded multi-loop systems, from fast inner loops through plant-level dynamics.
- Hands-on real-time embedded control systems development experience (C/C++ on RTOS or bare-metal platforms) with modern software practices including version control, code review, and CI/CD pipelines running automated SIL regression.
- Experience developing and validating controls in simulation (PSCAD, EMTP, MATLAB/Simulink, PLECS) and on HIL/SIL platforms (RTDS, OPAL-RT).
- Strong debugging and root-cause analysis skills across software, firmware, and hardware boundaries.
- Master's or PhD in Electrical Engineering, Controls, or Power Systems.
- 20+ years of experience delivering control systems in safety-critical domains including driving major architecture changes end-to-end.
- Power electronics control (inverters, converters, rectifiers), ideally VSC HVDC, spanning valve and submodule control through pole, converter, and system level.
- BESS and plant-level control (EMS, PPC, or dispatch), including grid-forming and grid-following inverter control strategies.
- Fault-tolerant and distributed control architectures (redundancy, hot-standby failover, autonomous multi-controller coordination) and protection coordination.
- Deploying control systems to production hardware and participating in commissioning.
- Exposure to power systems modeling, load flow analysis, or transient stability studies.
- Familiarity with power-system and industrial communication standards (IEC 61850, DNP3, Modbus, CAN) and OT security/functional safety frameworks (IEC 61508, IEC 62443, NERC CIP).
Skills
- C/C++
- RTOS
- Bare-metal platforms
- Version control
- Code review
- CI/CD pipelines
- Automated SIL regression
- PSCAD
- EMTP
- MATLAB/Simulink
- PLECS
- RTDS
- OPAL-RT
- Debugging
- Root-cause analysis
- Power electronics control
- VSC HVDC
- BESS control
- Plant-level control
- EMS
- PPC
- Dispatch
- Grid-forming inverter control
- Grid-following inverter control
- Fault-tolerant control
- Distributed control architectures
- Redundancy
- Hot-standby failover
- Autonomous multi-controller coordination
- Protection coordination
- Power systems modeling
- Load flow analysis
- Transient stability studies
- IEC 61850
- DNP3
- Modbus
- CAN
- IEC 61508
- IEC 62443
- NERC CIP
Location
- San Francisco
Work Type
- Onsite
- Full-time
Experience Level
- Principal
- Senior Individual Contributor
- 15+ years
- 20+ years
Education Level
- Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering or related field
- Master's or PhD in Electrical Engineering, Controls, or Power Systems
Salary/Compensations
- Competitive compensation package commensurate with experience, including salary and material equity participation.
Benefits
- Medical, dental, and vision coverage, including 75% coverage for dependents and spouses.
- Up to $300/month reimbursement for gym and wellness expenses, or Bay Club membership for SF-based employees.
- Lunch provided daily when working from an office.
- Unlimited PTO with manager approval, plus company-wide office closures for July 4 week and one week in December.
- Laptop of choice provided.
- Convenient SF office location on the Embarcadero and near public transit (pre-tax transit benefit).
- Employee contribution 401(k) program.
About the Company
- American Terawatt is building a new industrial electric grid for the United States.
- At the core of our grid - where power systems engineering becomes real - are the distributed, fault-tolerant control loops that keep it safe and stable.
- We design and deploy advanced power transmission systems, serving large industrial loads, gigawatts at a time.
- Our systems deliver power to everything from frontier AI datacenters to advanced automated manufacturing, refineries, mines, and more.
- We make interconnection fast, simple, and cheap.
- On our network, generation owners get their projects online faster, delivering abundant power at competitive prices.
- The backbone of American Terawatt’s network is HVDC transmission, anchored by our unique terminal design.
- American Terawatt’s HVDC terminals are standardized, modular, and natively integrate energy storage.
- Each terminal is designed to expand to operate as a full node on our future HVDC transmission network.