Senior System Protection Engineer – Grid Reliability Lead

Sargent & Lundy; Chicago (IL); Hybrid; USD 135,000 - 206,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Relocation package

Comprehensive health benefits

Job summary

Sargent & Lundy in Chicago is seeking a Lead System Protection Engineer to join our Grid Services team. You will lead protection philosophy development, relay settings, and power system studies for HV transmission and substation projects.

This role emphasizes reviewing P&C designs, configuring protective relays with vendor tools, supporting commissioning, and aligning with IEEE/ANSI/NERC standards, with a hybrid work arrangement.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering from an ABET-accredited program.
• 10+ years of experience in system protection engineering for transmission/substation projects.
• Hands-on responsibility for relay settings and protection studies.
• Knowledge of protection philosophies for line, transformer, bus, and capacitor/reactor protection.

Responsibilities

• Lead the development and application of protection philosophies and settings for transmission lines, transformers, buses, and capacitor banks.
• Perform fault studies, relay coordination, and time‑current curve development; use CAPE/ASPEN or equivalent tools.
• Configure, set, and troubleshoot microprocessor‑based protective relays with vendor software.
• Use Powerbase or similar databases to manage relay records and configurations.
• Support event analysis, misoperation investigations, and ensure compliance with standards.
• Develop and review P&C design documents including one‑lines, three‑lines, schematics, and layouts.
• Provide protection requirements and markups for CT/VT ratios, logic, and communications.
• Support commissioning and field energization with test plans and RFIs.

Skills

Relay settings

Protection philosophies

Power system studies

P&C design review

CAPE/ASPEN

SEL AcSELerator

EnerVista

IEEE/ANSI/NERC standards

Communication skills

Project leadership

Education

ABET-accredited Electrical Engineering degree

Tools

SEL AcSELerator

EnerVista

CAPE

ASPEN

Powerbase

Job description

Sargent & Lundy in Chicago is seeking a Lead System Protection Engineer to join our Grid Services team. You will lead protection philosophy development, relay settings, and power system studies for HV transmission and substation projects.

This role emphasizes reviewing P&C designs, configuring protective relays with vendor tools, supporting commissioning, and aligning with IEEE/ANSI/NERC standards, with a hybrid work arrangement.