Senior SCADA Engineer

Job Description

Position: Sr. SCADA Engineer

Location: Nashville, TN (hybrid)

Overview:

Silicon Ranch owns and operates a growing fleet of distributed solar, utility-scale solar and solar-plus-storage plants and is bringing operations and maintenance in-house at a growing number of sites. The Senior SCADA & Controls Engineer is the owner's technical authority for SCADA, power plant controllers (PPC), plant networks and data acquisition across the fleet. This role sets how our plants are monitored and controlled, holds vendors and integrators to that standard, and is the escalation point when plant controls or communications fail.

The role sits alongside Performance Engineering and the 24×7 Remote Operations Center (ROC), so plant data quality, control readiness and loss recovery are owned in one place. It works daily with Field Maintenance, which owns on-site execution.

Main Responsibilities:

Fleet SCADA ownership and architecture

• Serve as subject-matter expert for the fleet's SCADA, PPC, RTU, data logger and network stack across multiple vendor platforms, including vendor-bundled and owner-controlled architectures.
• Define and maintain SRC SCADA and controls standards: network architecture, point lists and naming, time synchronization, data models, alarm philosophy and documentation requirements.
• Lead the technical side of transitions between SCADA platforms and integrators, including migration planning, cutover testing and data continuity.
• Validate that every addition or modification is scalable, documented and consistent with the standard.

Escalation-level troubleshooting and restoration

• Lead root-cause investigation of SCADA, PPC and communications failures, remotely and on site, and drive them to closure with OEMs, integrators and field technicians.
• Diagnose device communication issues, managed switch diagnostics and protocol analyzers; resolve connectivity, latency and data-loss problems.
• Travel to sites for complex failures, commissioning of changes and site acceptance testing when remote resolution is not possible.

Power plant control

• Review and validate PPC control narratives and logic for active/reactive power, voltage, power factor, ramp-rate and curtailment response against interconnection and utility requirements.
• Witness and approve PPC and SCADA factory and site acceptance tests; own the test record.
• Lead owner-driven controls improvements, such as inverter-level reactive power dispatch, tracker control strategies (including grazing-aware stow and positioning), and retrofits that give SRC more direct control of data acquisition.

Remote Operations Center enablement

• Ensure ROC operators have reliable real-time visibility and control: HMI screens, alarm configuration, setpoint and curtailment pathways, and three-part communication tooling.
• Own alarm management for the fleet: tune noisy alarms, build new ones, and keep alarm response procedures current.
• Train ROC operators and field personnel on SCADA and PPC behavior, failure modes and safe operating procedures.

Data integrity for performance analytics

• Guarantee the quality and completeness of plant data flowing into SRC's analytics platform: tag mapping, sampling rates, meter and met station integration, and gap root cause.
• Partner with Performance Engineering on loss investigations where controls behavior is the cause, such as curtailment execution, reactive power, clipping or tracker faults.
• Write Python or SQL scripts to validate telemetry and diagnose data issues.

New projects, vendors and compliance

• Review SCADA and PPC design submittals for new projects before construction and at turnover, so plants enter operations meeting the SRC standard.
• Lead technical evaluation of SCADA platforms, integrators and equipment; write technical scope and contract exhibit language and hold vendors to it.
• Support NERC GO/GOP compliance and CIP obligations for SCADA assets: change management, access control, configuration baselines, evidence retention.

Field support interface

• Act as Tier 3 support to Field Maintenance technicians; provide procedures, configuration packages and remote guidance so field teams can complete Tier 1/2 fixes without escalation.
• Maintain a SCADA critical-spares list with Field Maintenance and recommend stocking levels.

Qualifications: 

• Bachelor's degree in Electrical, Computer or Controls Engineering, or equivalent experience.
• 7+ years supporting SCADA, PPC or controls for utility-scale renewable generation, with at least 3 years in an owner, operator or O&M setting.
• Hands-on PPC experience (design, testing, troubleshooting) on platforms such as SEL RTAC, GE/Emerson RX3i, Allen-Bradley or vendor-integrated controllers.
• Solar-specific troubleshooting experience across central and string inverters (e.g. SMA, TMEIC, Power Electronics, Sungrow), trackers (e.g. Nextracker, Array, ATI) and data acquisition systems.
• Working knowledge of HMI/SCADA providers and platforms such as Inductive Automation Ignition, Merit Controls, Norcal, Terabase, GreenPowerMonitor or SEL.
• Strong industrial networking: Layer 2/3, VLANs, fiber, serial RS-232/485, Ethernet TCP/IP, firewalls.
• Industrial protocols: Modbus RTU/TCP, DNP3, OPC UA/DA, SEL Fast Messages; IEC 61850 a plus.
• Ability to read and mark up electrical one-lines, communications diagrams and control schematics.
• Clear written and verbal communication, including with vendors and executives.
• Valid driver's license; authorized to work in the United States.

• Experience with NERC GO/GOP registration, CIP standards and change management for generation SCADA.
• BESS or hybrid PV+storage controls and EMS integration.
• Python and SQL (MS SQL, PostgreSQL) for data validation; familiarity with cloud data platforms.
• Experience leading a SCADA platform or integrator transition.
• Experience developing and delivering technical training.

A typical interview process at Silicon Ranch might include the below stages. Please note that we may make changes to these steps as needed, and details will be provided to you early on in the process.

1. Introductory Interview with our recruiter
2. Hiring Manager Interview to dive into technical skills and behavioral questions
3. Panel Interview to assess cross-functional skills and dive deeper into technical skills
4. Executive Interview to answer high-level questions about SRC and the team