Principal, Asset Management Specialist - Intrusive Pole Testing (Flexible location)

Pacific Gas and Electric Company; Oakland (CA); Hybrid; USD 140,000 - 238,000; Full time

Job summary

Pacific Gas and Electric Company is seeking a Pole Test & Treat Strategy Subject Matter Expert in the Bay Area. The hybrid role leads the PTT program, translating GO 165 requirements into a robust, auditable playbook and annual work plan for intrusive pole inspections.

You will own the compliance-determination methodology, coordinate with cross-functional teams, and drive continuous program improvements to ensure safety and reliability of the distribution system.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree (or equivalent experience) required.
• 10 years of related experience or equivalent.
• Master’s degree preferred (advantage).

Responsibilities

• Own and continuously improve the PTT Playbook, including eligibility criteria, cycle methodology, and annual work plan.
• Serve as principal technical SME for GO 165 PTT requirements and translate regulations into program requirements.
• Manage the intrusive testing procedure and revise practices for wood pole testing.
• Ensure forward-looking compliance and detect poles entering population before due dates.
• Support cause analysis and corrective actions for failures and gaps.
• Integrate PTT into pole lifecycle and asset-health strategy for repairs and replacements.
• Support regulatory, audit and WMP controls with traceable program records.
• Provide strategic recommendations on future PTT scope and governance.

Education

Bachelor’s degree or equivalent experience

Master’s degree preferred

Job description

Department Overview

Welcome to Electric Asset Strategy (EAS). We are responsible for the Distribution electric system’s asset strategy, standards, procedures and end-to-end risk management for 2.3 million structures. We deliver a risk informed strategic plan, leveraging inspection insights and asset data to drive strategic maintenance and investment decisions.

The Distribution Asset Risk Management (ARM) team—comprising Asset Failure Analysis (AFA), Asset Insights, and Inspections & Maintenance Strategy (I&M)—focuses on continuously improving on how PG&E monitors and maintains its assets to support a resilient, reliable grid to help keep our communities safe.

Position Summary

As the Pole Test & Treat (PTT) Strategy Subject Matter Expert, you will serve as the strategic and technical lead for PG&E’s Electric Distribution PTT program, to deliver on best practices for preventive-maintenance and asset-condition assessments used to evaluate pole structural condition and support compliance with GO 165 intrusive-inspection requirements. You will own the strategy for planning the population of poles to intrusively inspect in the coming year. You will translate regulatory requirements, be the expert on asset-condition knowledge, inspection history, and build enterprise asset data into a defensible playbook that becomes the annual PTT workplan.

The role requires expertise across the complete pole strategy lifecycle, including inspection eligibility, due-date methodology, work-plan development, plan validation, change management, and asset-data discrepancies. You will work cross-functionally with PTT execution, System Inspections, Asset Knowledge Management, Asset Failure Analysis and other stakeholders to identify newly inspectable structures, investigate discrepancies, determine appropriate disposition, and drive corrective actions. You will lead the continuous improvement and governance necessary to make the program proactive, stable, traceable, and compliance-ready.

This hybrid position requires working from both a remote office and an assigned work location, based on business needs.

PG&E is providing the salary range that the company in good faith believes it might pay for this position at the time of the job posting. This compensation range is specific to the locality of the job. The actual salary paid to an individual will be based on multiple factors, including, but not limited to, specific skills, education, licenses or certifications, experience, market value, geographic location, collective bargaining agreements, and internal equity. Although we estimate the successful candidate hired into this role will be placed towards the middle or entry point of the range, the decision will be made on a case-by-case basis related to these factors. This job is also eligible to participate in PG&E’s discretionary incentive compensation programs.

A reasonable salary range is:
Bay Area Minimum: $140,000
Bay Area Mid-Point: $189,000
Bay Area Maximum: $238,000
&/OR
CA Minimum: $133,000
CA Mid-Point: $180,000
CA Maximum: $226,000

Job Responsibilities

• Own and continuously improve the PTT Playbook. Ownership includes inspection eligibility criteria, inspection-cycle methodology, annual compliance population definition, and the logic used to establish the annual intrusive-inspection work plan. You will also own the compliance-determination methodology, GIS/data reconciliation, overdue-asset escalation, regulatory reporting requirements, and records requirements.
• Serve as the principal technical SME for GO 165 PTT requirements. You are able to translate regulatory requirements into clear, documented program requirements, controls, work-planning rules, and decision logic.
• Own the Procedure that governs intrusive testing. Reviewing and revising practices to ensure continuous improvement for testing and evaluating wood poles.
• Establish forward-looking compliance assurance, using recurring validation of eligibility and inspection attainment to detect poles entering the required population through maintenance, construction, GIS or asset-registry changes before they become compliance issues (i.e.: changes in installation-date, ownership, material, pole-use, inspection-history, GIS/SAP status, and other attributes that determine whether a structure is PTT eligible).
• Support cause analysis evaluations and corrective actions when failures occur and cause investigations are performed to understand gaps, extent of condition, and how to best mitigate risk of reoccurrence.
• Integrate PTT into the broader pole lifecycle and asset-health strategy, ensuring intrusive inspection results appropriately inform repair, reinforcement, maintenance and replacement decisions and complement visual inspection programs.
• Support regulatory, audit and WMP controls, including but not limited to data request responses, regulatory report-outs, and ensuring the program records are traceable, verifiable, accurate, complete and retrievable.
• Provide strategic recommendations on future PTT scope, cycles and program improvements, with the objective of anticipating future inspection requirements instead of discovering aged or incomplete records when they become immediately due. That forward-looking need was explicitly discussed in the recent inspectable-pole review.
• Recognized subject matter expert who represents PG&E in regulatory and/or industry forums on subject of expertise.
• Coaches and mentors less experienced employees
• Demonstrates strategic leadership with internal stakeholders to support Company goals.
• Responsible for utilizing other departments and teams to meet program goals.
• Organize and lead cross-utility project teams to influence utility, regulatory and/or industry decisions.
• Develops or provides significant input to PG&E leadership, other utilities with similar programs, industry and/or regulatory decision makers to influence market place and regulatory strategies impacting PG&E and its customers.

Qualifications

Minimum:

• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent experience. Master’s degree preferred
• 10 years of related experience or equivalent

Desired:

• Master’s in Business Administration or other Advanced Degree
• Ability to comprehend complex systems and data infrastructure to help drive strategic decision making, and to recommend operational improvements
• Experience in working in large datasets, data strategy and/or data governance, and understanding the management or training of AI and/or large language models
• Experience in Geographic Information Systems (GIS) analytics
• Project Management Professional (PMP) Certification
• Highly skilled at leading cross-functional project teams. Experience leading cross cutting programs and/or technology deployments
• In depth knowledge of energy and/or electric utility industry processes, regulatory requirements, critical success factors, goals and initiatives.
• Ability to lead large and complex projects working with cross-functional teams
• Ability to create compelling business cases based on complex business environments and inputs
• Adept at addressing issues with diplomacy and tact
• Travel may be required