Senior SCADA / PPC-EMS Systems Engineer

TAR; Austin (TX); On-site; USD 150,000 - 180,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Relocation bonus

Health insurance

Dental insurance

Vision insurance

Meals stipend

Unlimited PTO

Job summary

TAR is hiring a Senior SCADA / PPC-EMS Systems Engineer to bridge the plant as-built with TAR's future product. You will own roadmap requirements, device-driver integration, validation, and test automation in a lab setting, partnering with Applications, Project Engineering, and software teams to define repeatable, scalable capabilities for next-gen energy infrastructure.

You will shape network architecture, data collection, and telemetry strategies, ensuring scalable, compliant solutions for

Qualifications

• 7+ years in utility-scale solar, BESS, wind, or hybrid plants across SCADA, PPC/EMS, controls, or commissioning.
• Hands-on field experience: you have commissioned plants, run performance tests with utilities, and debugged failures on site.
• Experience with commercial PPC/EMS platforms including Ignition, inductive automation, RTAC etc and a clear view of their limits.
• Strong command of industrial protocols, including Modbus TCP/RTU, DNP3, and IEC 61850, with working knowledge of IEC 60870-5-104 and OPC UA.
• Solid plant networking: VLANs, ring topologies, redundancy (RSTP, PRP/HSR), fiber, time sync (PTP, NTP, IRIG-B), and latency budgeting.
• Grid interconnection know-how: active and reactive power control, voltage and frequency regulation, ramp-rate limits, and the tests utilities require, such as IEEE 2800 and NERC MOD/PRC.
• Experience writing testable requirements and pass/fail criteria, and working with software teams on test automation.
• Comfort with scripting, Python preferred, for test automation, data analysis, or tooling.
• Clear written and verbal communication across Applications, Project, and Software Engineering, and directly with customers.

Responsibilities

• Own the PPC/EMS roadmap requirements, turning field needs, customer requirements, and grid-code obligations into clear, prioritized product requirements that software and controls teams can build against.
• Own requirements for new device driver integrations, including inverters, BESS/PCS, meters, relays, met stations, and RTUs, and validate each driver in the TAR test lab before it reaches a project.
• Define pass/fail acceptance criteria for every new PPC/EMS feature, covering active and reactive power control, voltage and frequency response, ramp rates, curtailment, and setpoint tracking.
• Build and own automated system-level test suites, including hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) and lab rigs, so regressions are caught in the lab before field deployment.
• Define PPC/EMS performance testing with Project Engineering on each project, from FAT through SAT and commissioning, ensuring tests meet utility and interconnection requirements such as IEEE 2800, NERC, ISO/RTO, and local grid-code tests.
• Architect next-generation SCADA, EMS, and plant network solutions alongside Project Engineering, addressing legacy field limitations to optimize control hierarchy, communication protocols, redundancy, latency, and failover.
• Own data collection, logging, and telemetry requirements: what TAR collects, at what resolution and retention, for control, compliance, and diagnostics, plus integration requirements for third-party O&M platforms, alerting, and dashboarding tools.
• Turn new customer and site requirements from Applications Engineering into product features rather than one-off project work, and work directly with customers, utilities, and O&M partners to understand their needs and help set the standard for where the industry is heading.

Skills

SCADA

PPC/EMS

Controls

Commissioning

Field experience

Tools

Ignition

Inductive Automation

RTAC

Job description

Mission

TAR's mission is to power intelligence for the world. We are building the world's first off-grid power plant for data centers powered by renewable technologies.

We firmly believe AI should be built in the US for the benefit of all people. For that, power must be fast, clean and scalable. We are singularly focused on delivering GW-scale power faster than anyone has ever done, by rethinking every layer of the stack.

We vertically integrate to solve every bottleneck, from racking systems to power electronics to dispatch algorithms to on-site construction.

Leave your mark on the future of civilization-scale energy infrastructure.

Company

TAR is both a hardware and software company, we are building out massive, critical, physical infrastructure. TAR is working directly with one of the largest compute providers to scale and deploy 5GWs by 2028.

We operate on ...

• High ownership. High Agency. Own project end-to-end. Great people don't need to be managed.

• Speed. We achieve great things on incredible timelines. We push ourselves to go faster.

• First principles. No ego. No hierarchy. Challenge every assumption.

• Passion. Solving the energy problem is one of the largest challenges that faces the world now and in the future.

About the role

As Senior SCADA / PPC-EMS Systems Engineer, you are the bridge between the plant as it is built today and the product TAR is building for tomorrow.

You own the PPC/EMS roadmap requirements, new device driver integration and validation in the TAR test lab, system-level acceptance criteria and test automation, and data collection, logging, and telemetry requirements. With Project Engineering, you will rethink SCADA, EMS, and plant network architecture from first principles. This is not a point-to-point mapping role.

You will partner closely with Applications Engineering, Project Engineering, and software and controls teams, while retaining ownership of requirements, pass/fail criteria, and the test suites behind them. Software implementation sits with software and controls teams; project-level performance-test scope and sign-off are agreed jointly with Project Engineering.

Success looks like this: project-specific networking, protection, SCADA, and PPC details become repeatable TAR software features. Each new plant needs less custom engineering and goes live faster.

Responsibilities

• Own the PPC/EMS roadmap requirements, turning field needs, customer requirements, and grid-code obligations into clear, prioritized product requirements that software and controls teams can build against.

• Own requirements for new device driver integrations, including inverters, BESS/PCS, meters, relays, met stations, and RTUs, and validate each driver in the TAR test lab before it reaches a project.

• Define pass/fail acceptance criteria for every new PPC/EMS feature, covering active and reactive power control, voltage and frequency response, ramp rates, curtailment, and setpoint tracking.

• Build and own automated system-level test suites, including hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) and lab rigs, so regressions are caught in the lab before field deployment.

• Define PPC/EMS performance testing with Project Engineering on each project, from factory acceptance (FAT) through site acceptance (SAT) and commissioning, ensuring tests meet utility and interconnection requirements such as IEEE 2800, NERC, ISO/RTO, and local grid-code tests, and that results feed back into the product.

• Architect next-generation SCADA, EMS, and plant network solutions alongside Project Engineering, addressing legacy field limitations to optimize control hierarchy, communication protocols, redundancy, latency, and failover.

• Own data collection, logging, and telemetry requirements: what TAR collects, at what resolution and retention, for control, compliance, and diagnostics, plus integration requirements for third-party O&M platforms, alerting, and dashboarding tools.

• Turn new customer and site requirements from Applications Engineering into product features rather than one-off project work, and work directly with customers, utilities, and O&M partners to understand their needs and help set the standard for where the industry is heading.

Qualifications

• 7+ years in utility-scale solar, BESS, wind, or hybrid plants across SCADA, PPC/EMS, controls, or commissioning.

• Hands-on field experience: you have commissioned plants, run performance tests with utilities, and debugged failures on site.

• Experience with commercial PPC/EMS platforms including Ignition, inductive automation, RTAC etc and a clear view of their limits.

• Strong command of industrial protocols, including Modbus TCP/RTU, DNP3, and IEC 61850, with working knowledge of IEC 60870-5-104 and OPC UA.

• Solid plant networking: VLANs, ring topologies, redundancy (RSTP, PRP/HSR), fiber, time sync (PTP, NTP, IRIG-B), and latency budgeting.

• Grid interconnection know-how: active and reactive power control, voltage and frequency regulation, ramp-rate limits, and the tests utilities require, such as IEEE 2800 and NERC MOD/PRC.

• Experience writing testable requirements and pass/fail criteria, and working with software teams on test automation.

• Comfort with scripting, Python preferred, for test automation, data analysis, or tooling.

• Clear written and verbal communication across Applications, Project, and Software Engineering, and directly with customers.

Nice to have

• Power-plant cybersecurity: NERC CIP, IEC 62443, network segmentation, secure remote access, and security testing in OT environments.

• Hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) testing with tools such as RTDS, OPAL-RT, or Typhoon HIL.

• Time-series data and observability stacks, such as historians, InfluxDB/TimescaleDB, Grafana, MQTT, or Kafka.

• Protection coordination and relay settings knowledge (SEL, GE, ABB, Siemens).

• Background in a product company where field knowledge became software features.

Salary and Benefits

• Up to $15K relocation bonus

• Unlimited PTO

• Health, Dental, Vision insurance

• $1K monthly stipend for meals