Senior Project Lead Engineer

ABB Inc.; Houston (TX); Hybrid; USD 110,000 - 170,000; Full time

Job summary

ABB Inc. in Houston, TX is seeking a Senior Project Lead Engineer with a strong background in Protection and Controls to guide engineering teams through the design and delivery of substation and building integration projects.

You will lead customer meetings, review designs, and provide technical oversight across multiple disciplines, ensuring safety, standards compliance, and project success.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering or related field.
• Experience leading multi-discipline engineering groups.
• Strong knowledge of protection philosophies and relay coordination.

Responsibilities

• Lead and support engineering projects, ensuring successful delivery through technical leadership and adherence to scope, schedule, and quality.
• Create and review substation and electrical building integration design packages from concept to construction.
• Lead customer technical meetings, design reviews, and interdisciplinary engineering coordination meetings.
• Serve as technical lead for Protection and Controls across projects with guidance and oversight.
• Develop protection and control system designs, including relay selection, settings, configuration, and coordination.
• Mentor team members on protection and control best practices.
• Review engineering deliverables for accuracy and regulatory compliance.
• Coordinate vendors and subcontractors to align with project requirements and schedules.

Skills

Protection & Controls

Project Leadership

Substation Design

Power System Studies

Mentoring

Technical Oversight

Job description

At ABB, we help industries run leaner and cleaner-and every person here makes that happen. You'll be empowered to lead, supported to grow, and proud of the impact we create together. Join us and help run what runs the world.

This position reports to: Electrical Engineering Manager

ABB is seeking a Senior Project Lead Engineer with a strong background in Protection and Controls to join our team. Working at ABB offers a unique opportunity to gain hands-on experience across the full spectrum of power system engineering. Our group actively engages in substation design, protection and controls engineering, power system studies, and the design and implementation of power management systems. Being part of this team allows engineers to collaborate across multiple disciplines, contribute to complex and impactful projects, and develop a well-rounded understanding of modern power infrastructure up to 69kV.

The work model for the role is: hybrid #LI-Hybrid.

This role is contributing to the Automation Energy Industries division in Houston, TX.

Your role and responsibilities:

• Lead and support engineering projects, ensuring successful delivery through effective technical leadership, coordination, and adherence to project scope, schedule, and quality expectations.
• Create and review substation and electrical building integration design packages and follow those projects from the conceptual stage to construction completion.
• Lead customer technical meetings, design reviews, and interdisciplinary engineering coordination meetings.
• Serve as the technical lead for Protection and Controls across projects, providing guidance, standards, and technical oversight to the engineering team.
• Develop and review protection and control system designs, including relay selection, protection philosophies, settings development, configuration, and coordination.
• Support and mentor team members on protection and control best practices, helping build capability within the group
• Review engineering deliverables to ensure technical accuracy, consistency, and compliance with industry standards, project specifications, and internal engineering practices.
• Coordinate and provide technical oversight of multi-discipline vendors and subcontractors, ensuring alignment with project requirements, engineering standards, schedules, and overall project objectives.
• Support proposal development, engineering estimates, technical risk assessments, and engineering execution planning.

Additional tasks with varying scope depending on experience level:

• Perform and review power system studies (e.g., short circuit, protection coordination, arc flash, load flow) to support protection design and validate system performance.
• Design/review/implementation of power management systems (PMS).

Our Team Dynamics

Our teams support each other, collaborate, and never stop learning. Everyone brings something unique, and together we push ideas forward to solve real problems. Being part of our team means your work matters - because the progress we make here creates real impact out there.