Senior Power Plant Engineer — Field Startup & Optimization

SpaceX; Town of Texas (WI); On-site; USD 170,000 - 250,000; Full time

Job summary

SpaceX is seeking a Sr. Power Plant Engineer to own the design, build, and operation of a full-scale gas turbine power plant. You will lead commissioning in the control room during startup and perform field troubleshooting to keep the plant at rated output.

Responsibilities include lifecycle support, OEM coordination, and deep analysis of performance data to drive reliability and efficiency. Extensive travel and extended hours may be required.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical or Electrical Engineering or related field.
• 5+ years of hands-on experience with utility-scale gas turbines in commissioning, operations, or maintenance.

Responsibilities

• Support the full lifecycle of gas turbine power generation assets—installation, commissioning, startup, operations, and long-term maintenance.
• Lead or support commissioning activities including combustion tuning, control system checkout, protective relay testing, and performance/reliability run verification.
• Own root-cause analysis and corrective action for turbine trips, outages, and performance degradation; drive fixes to prevent recurrence.
• Develop and refine operating procedures, startup/shutdown sequences, and abnormal operating condition playbooks.
• Interface with OEMs (GE, Siemens Energy, Mitsubishi Power, Doosan) on warranty issues and outage planning.
• Plan and execute major/minor inspections and outages in line with OEM maintenance intervals.
• Analyze turbine performance data to identify efficiency losses and recommend corrective action.

Skills

Gas turbines

Commissioning

Operations

Maintenance

Root-cause analysis

P&IDs interpretation

DCS control

LTSA knowledge

CAD software

Education

Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical or Electrical Engineering

Tools

SOLIDWORKS

Siemens NX

Job description

SpaceX is seeking a Sr. Power Plant Engineer to own the design, build, and operation of a full-scale gas turbine power plant. You will lead commissioning in the control room during startup and perform field troubleshooting to keep the plant at rated output.

Responsibilities include lifecycle support, OEM coordination, and deep analysis of performance data to drive reliability and efficiency. Extensive travel and extended hours may be required.