Director, IT Houston, TX

Hanwha Energy USA; Houston, Northern (TX, KY); Hybrid; USD 180,000 - 280,000; Full time

Job summary

Hanwha Energy USA, headquartered in Houston, seeks a Director of IT to lead the Energy Technology pod supporting Trading, Wholesale Supply, Retail Supply, Gas, Generation, BESS, Risk, Settlements, and related energy operations.

You will own technology strategy, product roadmap, and operational reliability for Hanwha Commodities platforms, translating energy-market needs into prioritized technology products and ensuring market-critical applications are stable and scalable.

Qualifications

• Strong technical background in SQL, Python and .NET in Azure environment.
• Experience supporting live trading desk or market-critical operations.
• Translate trading, forecasting, scheduling, pricing, position, settlement, gas, generation requirements into technology priorities.
• Strong product ownership, backlog management, and stakeholder-management skills.
• Proactive problem-solving mindset with ability to operate under time pressure.
• High attention to detail and ability to manage multiple urgent priorities.

Responsibilities

• Own the Hanwha Commodities technology portfolio and energy roadmap.
• Translate business needs into technical requirements and deliverables.
• Lead the dedicated Energy Technology delivery pod and manage Energy app/data resources.
• Define service expectations and incident response for market-critical products.
• Guide build-versus-buy decisions and manage vendor relationships.
• Protect the team from unrelated work and escalate capacity constraints.

Skills

SQL

Python

.NET

Azure

Product ownership

Backlog management

Stakeholder management

Problem-solving

Attention to detail

Energy markets interest

Trading operations

Tools

Power BI

Job description

Hanwha Energy USA, headquartered in Houston, Texas, is part of the Hanwha Group—a FORTUNE Global 300 company and one of South Korea’s most respected business enterprises. With over a decade of experience delivering high-quality, utility-scale energy projects across North America, Hanwha Energy USA has evolved into a comprehensive energy solutions provider. Our portfolio now spans utility-scale renewables, natural gas generation, retail electricity, and strategic partnerships that power America’s growing data center industry.

Our expertise covers the entire energy value chain—from project development and engineering to construction, operations, and maintenance. By integrating advanced technologies, proven processes, and strong partnerships, we deliver reliable, customized solutions that meet the dynamic needs of local energy markets.

Hanwha Energy USA is actively advancing strategic initiatives in natural gas generation and data center development, including hyperscaler solutions on both sides of the meter. We are proud to serve as the parent company of:

• Hanwha Renewables – specializing in utility-scale solar and battery energy storage systems (BESS)
• Chariot Energy – providing retail electricity services for residential, commercial, and industrial customers in deregulated markets

POSITION OVERVIEW

Hanwha Commodities is establishing a dedicated Energy Technology pod to support the application, data, analytics, and operational technology needs of Trading, Wholesale Supply, Retail Supply, Gas, Generation, BESS, Risk, Settlements, and related energy operations. The Director of IT, Hanwha Commodities will lead this dedicated capability, ensuring the business has protected technology capacity, reliable operational support, and a clear roadmap for priority initiatives. This role will combine hands-on energy-market technology expertise with strong product ownership, delivery leadership, and disciplined alignment to enterprise application, data, infrastructure, cybersecurity, and architecture standards.

The Director of IT will own the technology strategy, product roadmap, delivery outcomes, and operational reliability for Hanwha Commodities’ energy platforms. The role will translate specialized energy-market requirements into prioritized technology products, lead the dedicated Energy delivery pod, partner closely with business stakeholders, and ensure that market-critical applications and data services are stable, secure, scalable, and business-ready.

The employee may be required to perform other job-related duties as requested by management. All duties will be assigned in accordance with applicable laws and company policies.

RESPONSIBILITIES

Own the Hanwha Commodities technology portfolio

• Create and maintain the Energy technology roadmap.
• Consolidate requests from Trading, Supply, Gas, Generation, Risk, and Settlements.
• Prioritize work based on financial impact, operational risk, regulatory need, and business value.
• Define what is in scope, what is deferred, and what requires additional funding.
• Prevent individual business groups from bypassing the agreed backlog.

Serve as the energy-domain technology leader

• Understand the front-to-back energy lifecycle.
• Translate trading, forecasting, scheduling, pricing, position, settlement, gas, and generation needs into technology requirements.
• Challenge inefficient or poorly controlled business processes.
• Identify opportunities to build, buy, integrate, automate, or retire solutions.
• Ensure technical teams understand market deadlines, financial exposure, and operational consequences.

Drive product outcomes and measurable business value

• Define the business problem and desired outcome.
• Establish product requirements and acceptance criteria.
• Assign business product owners and subject-matter experts.
• Track delivery, adoption, reliability, and measurable value.
• Ensure that completed products are usable and supported, not merely technically deployed.

Lead dedicated Energy Technology capacity

• Own the day-to-day backlog for the dedicated Energy app and data resources.
• Plan sprints, releases, and delivery sequencing with the PM and BSA.
• Manage Energy-specific contractors and specialist vendors.
• Protect the team from unrelated business-unit work.
• Escalate capacity constraints instead of quietly overcommitting the team.

Guide build-versus-buy and vendor decisions

• Evaluate ETRM, market-data, forecasting, scheduling, settlement, telemetry, and generation solutions.
• Recommend when to configure a product, integrate a vendor, build internally, or use contractors.
• Develop the business case and total-cost assessment.
• Retain internal ownership of requirements, architecture decisions, data, and vendor performance.

Own Energy product operations and reliability

• Define service expectations for market-critical Energy products.
• Ensure business fallback procedures are established.
• Coordinate incident priority and business communication.
• Review recurring failures and drive permanent corrective actions.
• Confirm that operational ownership is defined before production release.

ROLE BOUNDRIES:

This role is accountable for Hanwha Commodities technology products, delivery priorities, business outcomes, and operational reliability. Enterprise-wide technical standards and platform ownership will remain with the appropriate central IT leaders. The Director of IT, Hanwha Commodities does not own:

• Programming-language or framework standards
• Cloud-platform standards
• DevOps and CI/CD standards
• Data governance and canonical modeling standards
• Cybersecurity standards
• Infrastructure, networking, identity, or cloud subscriptions
• Technical career management of the broader Dev or Data teams
• Resource allocation outside the Energy portfolio

REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS:

• Strong technical background in SQL, Python and .NET in Azure environment, with the ability to understand application architecture, data flows, integrations, and production support issues.
• Demonstrated experience supporting live trading desk or market-critical operations, including diagnosing and resolving broken data pipelines, dashboard failures, or system issues within minutes of market events without disrupting desk workflows.
• Proven ability to translate trading, forecasting, scheduling, pricing, position, settlement, gas, generation, and risk requirements into clear technology priorities and deliverable product outcomes.
• Strong product ownership, backlog management, prioritization, and stakeholder-management skills.
• Proactive problem-solving mindset with the ability to operate calmly under time pressure and shifting business priorities.
• High attention to detail, strong follow-through, and the ability to manage multiple urgent priorities while protecting the team from unnecessary churn.
• Strong interest in energy markets, commodities, trading operations, and the technology platforms that support front-to-back energy lifecycle processes.

PREFERRED:

• Experience triaging production incidents under time pressure, including memory leaks, WebSocket disconnects, data-feed failures, dashboard outages, and performance issues during high market volatility.
• Track record of identifying and resolving performance bottlenecks in SQL query execution, reporting layers, data pipelines, and front-end rendering.
• Experience maintaining application and data-service stability during extreme load events, including grid-wide price spikes caused by weather, supply disruptions, or market volatility.
• Background in retail energy, wholesale energy, commodities trading, power, gas, generation, battery storage, settlements, or risk systems.
• Experience with ETRM, market-data, forecasting, scheduling, settlement, telemetry, generation, or commodity-risk platforms.
• Proficiency with Power BI or similar business-intelligence and analytics platforms.

Attention external recruitment firms, we will not accept any unsolicited resumes at this time. Please do not contact any internal member of our company to discuss the position or to solicit candidates.

Hanwha Energy USA provides equal employment opportunities (EEO) to all employees and applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability or genetics.

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