Houston, Texas, United States; Miami, Florida, United States; Reston, Virginia, United States
ON.energy is building the power infrastructure that makes the AI era possible. As AI demand surges past what the grid and traditional data centers can support, ON.energy provides a new class of power technology proven at gigawatt scale and trusted by the world’s leading cloud and AI companies. Our systems are already deployed across 2.5 GW of hyper-scale campuses, validated by top U.S. national labs, and certified for grid-safe operation by major utilities. With real products in the field, we’re scaling faster than the grid can, transforming power from a bottleneck into a competitive advantage for the companies building the future.
We’re looking for a Principal Power Electronics Engineer to set the technical direction for the grid-connected inverters at the heart of ON.energy’s AI UPS product family. This is the senior technical voice for power electronics on the product team: you architect the converter and controls approach, resolve the hardest engineering trade-offs, set the engineering standards others work to, and represent ON.energy’s inverter engineering externally — to vendors, customers, certifying bodies, and the broader industry. You are fluent in power electronics, its controls (grid-following and grid-forming), and BESS integration — ideally with UPS experience in mission-critical applications — and you own the inverter technical thread from proposal through FAT, commissioning, and field feedback for MW-scale systems.
Key Responsibilities
Architecture & technical authority
- Own the grid-connected-inverter product architecture and converter-controls strategy — grid-following and grid-forming operation, current limiting, and dynamic grid support — and the technical roadmap across concurrent product cycles.
- Define the engineering standards, design rules, and review gates the team works to; act as the final technical authority on the inverter change baseline.
- Serve as the company’s SME for grid-code and UPS performance compliance — IEEE 2800, IEEE 1547, UL 1741, IEC 62040-3, ERCOT ride-through — and set the inverter qualification / type-test program, acceptance criteria, and current-limit / short-circuit and data-evidence requirements suppliers must meet.
- Act as the ultimate escalation point for inverter root-cause analysis (current-limit, post-fault recovery, thermal, control instability) and drive corrective design changes.
- Mentor senior power-electronics, controls, and project engineers to scale the team’s technical capability.
Vendor management & supply strategy
- Own the strategic inverter vendor / OEM relationships and decide their architecture — sole-source vs dual-source, co-development depth, and IP boundaries.
- Set and enforce the inverter technical qualification process; run the highest-stakes design reviews and resolve the highest-stakes vendor escalations personally.
- Oversee vendors through design, FAT, serial production, and post-deployment corrective action; own procurement technical specifications and acceptance.
- Maintain vendor scorecards and drive continuous improvement across the supply base.
Proposal, documentation & project support
- Support business development with technical proposals — SLDs and GAs — that meet the customer’s needs, and compile inverter technical information packages for the project engineering team.
- Co-lead review and validation of inverter-related topics during project execution; maintain technical documentation, including as-built drawings.
- Support integration of the inverter with the EMS, Plant Controller, and SCADA layers.
- Capture design-improvement feedback across the design, commissioning, and O&M phases and turn it into product changes.
- Recommend design approaches and vendors for the main equipment; participate in product design sprints and in the product’s commissioning phase.
Required Qualifications & Skills
- Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering, Power Electronics, or a closely related technical field; MS preferred.
- 10+ years of hands-on power-electronics engineering, with a demonstrated record of operating with minimal direction in a senior technical role.
- Architecture-level decision authority on previous grid-connected-inverter, power-electronics, or BESS equipment — you’ve made the trade-off calls others built around.
- Proven system-level design of MW-scale power-electronics equipment, with deep converter-controls depth (grid-following / grid-forming, current limiting, protection).
- Fluency producing and reviewing SLDs, GAs, schematics, and panel layouts; expert with AutoCAD or equivalent E-CAD.
- Standards authority: UL 1741, IEEE 1547, IEEE 2800, IEC 62040-3, NFPA 855 / UL 9540 context; modeling with EMT tools (PSCAD, MATLAB / Simulink, PLECS).
- Strong track record running strategic vendor / OEM relationships through design, FAT, serial production, and post-deployment escalation.
- Excellent written and verbal communication — specs, technical positions, design-review leadership, and board-level briefings.
- Willing to travel up to 25–30% for FAT inspections, site commissioning, customer engagements, and vendor reviews.
Preferred Experience
- Direct experience with data center / UPS / mission-critical power or utility-scale BESS at the architecture level.
- Grid-forming inverters, advanced power-semiconductor (e.g., SiC) designs, and weak-grid / low-SCR EMT and impedance-stability validation.
- History of leading products through NRTL certification (UL, CSA, Intertek) and FAT / commissioning.
- Active Professional Engineer (PE) license; involvement in standards bodies (IEEE, UL, IEC, NFPA); patents or peer-reviewed publications.
For US-based roles - What you’ll get:
- Competitive salary + annual performance-based bonus eligibility
- Medical, dental, and vision insurance
- 401(k) with company match
- Paid time off and company holidays
For Mexico-based roles - What you’ll get:
- Competitive salary + annual performance bonus eligibility
- Major medical expenses and life insurance
- Paid time off and holidays (per local policy)
For all roles:
- Professional development and growth opportunities
- Opportunity to grow with a mission-driven team shaping the future of clean energy
- Equal Opportunity: ON.energy is committed to equal employment opportunity and to maintaining a work environment free of harassment, discrimination, or retaliation.
- Benefits vary by role and location and are subject to change.