Director, Transmission Planning

paces

New York (NY)

Hybrid

USD 180,000 - 250,000

Full time

14 days+

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Benefits offered by this job

Hybrid work in Brooklyn

Competitive equity compensation

401(k) match

Health, dental & vision insurance

Paid holidays & PTO

Job summary

Paces seeks a Transmission Planning Director in Brooklyn, NY to lead engineers, define methodologies, and expand the platform into market economics. You will own analytical scope, manage vendor relationships, and defend our approach in front of developers, utilities, and regulators.

You will collaborate with Product to align roadmaps with regulatory changes and industry dynamics, while building a high-performing team that delivers fast, rigorous analysis.

Qualifications

10+ years of experience spanning transmission planning and power markets, with depth on both sides.
Proven leadership: managed engineers, set standards, and owned deliverables at an RTO/ISO, utility, consultancy, or IPP.
Deep expertise in steady-state power flow analysis, contingency analysis, and planning criteria (NERC TPL).
Proficiency in grid analytics tools (PSS/E, TARA, PSLF, PowerWorld).
Strong understanding of nodal market mechanics: SCUC/SCED, LMP, and congestion pricing.

Responsibilities

Lead a team of transmission planning engineers and own the technical methodology.
Expand the platform from transmission planning into market economics and related analyses.
Evaluate vendor relationships for market data and simulation tools; make build-vs-buy-vs-partner decisions.
Defend external credibility; provide confidence to developers and utilities in studies.
Shape the power product roadmap with Product, regulatory developments, and feasibility feedback.
Represent Paces as a domain expert in customer conversations and industry groups.
Hire, develop, and mentor engineers; foster a high-agency team culture.
Define automation boundaries and balance human-in-the-loop decisions.

Skills

Transmission planning

Power markets

Leadership

PSS/E

PowerWorld

PSLF

NERC TPL

RTO/ISO markets

Data center interconnection

Education

Master's Degree or Ph.D. in engineering

Tools

PSS/E

TARA

PowerWorld

PSLF

Job description

The Opportunity

In the next 30 years, the world will transform every part of the built environment to be climate positive green infrastructure. But today’s renewable energy development process can’t move fast enough to meet global goals. Paces exists to change that. We are providing software and services to accelerate power development and unlocking one of the greatest opportunities of our time: transforming how infrastructure gets built and ensuring it’s built with renewable energy.

Our Solution

Paces is building the development engine for renewable infrastructure and power projects. Our Agentic AI automates early-stage due diligence and combines it with in-house expertise to accelerate late-stage diligence. The result: projects move from siting to construction-ready in a fraction of the time. Our platform streamlines siting, interconnection, and permitting for renewable energy and data center developers, real estate firms, EV charging companies, and more.

Our Team

We are building a team where people can proudly say their time at Paces is the most impactful, meaningful work of their career. Our amazing team in Brooklyn, New York includes incredible team members from tech companies like Meta AI, DeepMind, and Tesla; various high growth startups; as well as industry leaders from TotalEnergies, Con Edison and GE.

Paces is growing rapidly and looking for exceptional people to join who want to have a massive positive climate impact while building a great culture! We are looking for a Transmission Planning Director to join our Solutions team, reporting directly to the Head of Solutions.

What You’ll Achieve

Lead a team of transmission planning engineers and own the technical methodology; study assumptions, dispatch logic, contingency criteria, analytical scope.

Expand the platform from transmission planning into market economics; define how congestion analysis, dispatch dynamics, curtailment forecasting, and production cost modeling integrate with our existing power flow infrastructure.

Evaluate and manage vendor relationships for market data and simulation tools. Make build-vs-buy-vs-partner decisions on analytical capabilities.

Own external credibility. When a developer or utility questions our methodology, defend it. When a customer needs confidence that Paces’ analysis will hold up against the utility's formal study, provide it.

Work directly with Product to shape the power product roadmap; translating developer needs, regulatory developments, and technical feasibility into prioritized product investments.

Represent Paces externally as a domain expert; in customer conversations, at conferences, and in industry working groups.

Hire, develop, and mentor transmission planning engineers and market analysts. Build a high-agency team culture where engineering rigor and startup speed coexist.

Partner with engineering leadership to define what gets automated and what stays human-in-the-loop. Set the standard for delivering in days what consultants deliver in weeks; without compromising quality.

Requirements

10+ years of experience spanning transmission planning and power markets; with meaningful depth on both sides.

Proven leadership experience; you've managed engineers, set methodology standards, and been accountable for the quality of analytical deliverables at an RTO/ISO, utility, consultancy, developer, or IPP.

Deep expertise in steady-state power flow analysis, contingency analysis, and transmission planning criteria (NERC TPL standards).

Proficiency in PSS/E, TARA, PowerWorld, PSLF, or equivalent.

Strong understanding of nodal market mechanics: SCUC/SCED, LMP formation, transmission constraint pricing. You can connect a thermal violation in a planning model to a congestion event in the market.

Experience across multiple RTO/ISO markets.

Track record of translating technical analysis into business decisions; site selection, interconnection strategy, investment cases, or regulatory proceedings.

About You

Operate at the intersection of grid physics and grid economics, and have spent your career building expertise on both sides of that boundary.

Have strong opinions and are genuinely excited about how automation and AI can be applied to transmission planning and market analysis; what should be systematized, what requires engineering judgment, and where the industry is getting it wrong.

Are motivated by building new things. You'd rather define the methodology for a product that doesn't exist yet than optimize an established process at a large organization.

Lead by raising the bar; you care about technical quality, but you also invest in developing the people around you and creating an environment where engineers take ownership and do their best work.

Are engaged with where the industry is headed. The data center load boom, FERC interconnection reform, flexible load frameworks, the generation queue crisis; these aren't policy abstractions, they're the problems you think about daily.

Bonus Points

Experience in data center interconnection; large load studies, co-location analysis, or curtailable/flexible load frameworks.

BESS or solar interconnection, deliverability analysis, or generation curtailment forecasting experience.

Involvement in FERC proceedings, RTO stakeholder processes, or transmission planning working groups.

Master's Degree or Ph.D. in engineering or other related field

Experience at a high-growth startup or building a technical team from an early stage. We move quick at Paces — looking for folks to help us move even faster!

Compensation and Benefits