The posting
Company Overview:
Hanwha Convergence USA is a leading provider of O&M Servies for Solar and Energy Storage Systems, leveraging our industry-leading IT and engineering capabilities. In addition, we are a trusted smart factory solutions provider, supplying top-notch integrated control and monitoring systems. Our company is committed to bringing tomorrow’s dreams to life and creating a smarter world with our customers by adding value to technology.
Note for external recruiting firms: We are not accepting unsolicited resumes at this time. Please do not contact our employees regarding this position.
Position Summary:
The Director, Systems & Controls is responsible for providing strategic, technical, and operational leadership to rebuild, strengthen, and scale the Systems & Controls organization in support of the company's growing utility-scale SCADA, Plant Power Controller (PPC), solar, BESS, and hybrid power plant business.
This role serves as a senior customer-facing leader and primary technical interface for strategic customers, EPC contractors, Owners, Independent Engineers, developers, utilities, and other key project stakeholders. The Director is responsible for ensuring customer requirements are effectively translated into technical solutions and executable engineering deliverables while maintaining strong alignment across Engineering, Software, Procurement, Commissioning, Project Management, Business Development, and other internal teams.
In addition to leading customer and project execution activities, the Director will establish and strengthen the Systems & Controls organization, including its team structure, technical capabilities, engineering standards, governance, execution processes, and talent pipeline. This role will identify organizational and technical gaps, implement scalable solutions, and build a high-performing team capable of supporting multiple concurrent utility-scale projects.
The Director will also support strategic business development and customer qualification activities, including vendor registration, supplier qualification, and Approved Vendor List (AVL) registration, to strengthen the company's position as a trusted provider of SCADA, PPC, and integrated controls solutions.
Organizational Leadership & Team Development
- Provide strategic and operational leadership to rebuild, strengthen, and scale the Systems & Controls organization.
- Define and implement the organizational structure, operating model, roles, responsibilities, and technical capabilities necessary to support the company's SCADA, PPC, controls, and systems integration business.
- Establish clear accountability, performance expectations, technical standards, governance, and execution processes across the organization.
- Recruit, develop, mentor, and retain high-performing engineering, controls, SCADA, automation, and project execution personnel.
- Identify organizational, technical, and resource capability gaps and develop actionable improvement plans to strengthen team performance.
- Develop technical training, mentoring, succession planning, and career development programs for Systems & Controls team members.
- Build a scalable organization capable of supporting multiple concurrent utility-scale solar, BESS, and hybrid power plant projects.
- Establish and monitor organizational performance metrics related to engineering quality, project execution, schedule performance, commissioning readiness, and customer satisfaction.
- Lead continuous improvement initiatives to strengthen engineering quality, project execution, technical consistency, and customer outcomes.
Strategic Customer Leadership
- Serve as a senior customer-facing representative throughout the lifecycle of strategic SCADA, PPC, controls, and systems integration projects.
- Build and maintain strong relationships with EPC contractors, Owners, developers, Independent Engineers, utilities, commissioning teams, and other strategic stakeholders.
- Lead executive-level customer meetings, technical workshops, project reviews, and strategic discussions.
- Understand customer requirements and ensure they are accurately communicated, documented, and translated into actionable requirements for internal engineering and project teams.
- Manage customer expectations and proactively address technical, project, organizational, and execution concerns.
- Lead or support the resolution of critical customer escalations and establish appropriate recovery plans when required.
- Foster long-term customer relationships that support repeat business, strategic partnerships, and future project opportunities.
Technical Leadership & Systems Integration
- Provide technical leadership for discussions involving SCADA, PPC, communication networks, plant control systems, solar, BESS, hybrid power plants, and overall systems integration.
- Gather, document, review, and validate customer technical requirements in coordination with internal engineering and project teams.
- Ensure customer requirements are translated into clear, complete, and executable engineering deliverables.
- Lead technical clarification meetings during proposal, design, project execution, FAT, SAT, commissioning, and project closeout phases.
- Coordinate customer review and approval of engineering documents, control philosophies, communication architectures, functional specifications, and other technical deliverables.
- Establish technical standards, engineering practices, and best practices for Systems & Controls project execution.
- Ensure engineering deliverables meet contractual, technical, quality, and customer requirements before submission.
- Provide senior technical guidance on complex systems integration issues and support resolution of critical technical challenges.
Project Communication Management
- Facilitate effective communication between Engineering, Software, Procurement, Project Management, Commissioning, field teams, and customers.
- Translate customer requests and requirements into clear, actionable tasks and deliverables for internal stakeholders.
- Track customer action items and ensure timely follow-up, ownership, resolution, and closure.
- Lead or support customer meetings and ensure appropriate agendas, meeting minutes, action items, and follow-up activities are maintained.
- Identify communication gaps early and implement corrective actions to maintain project alignment and momentum.
- Escalate critical customer, technical, organizational, or project issues to senior management when necessary.
Schedule & Milestone Coordination
- Provide leadership and oversight for critical engineering, procurement, FAT, SAT, commissioning, and project closeout milestones.
- Coordinate customer deliverables and internal activities to support Mechanical Completion (MC), Substantial Completion (SC), Commercial Operation Date (COD), and other contractual milestones.
- Identify technical, organizational, resource, and execution risks that may affect project schedules.
- Coordinate recovery and mitigation plans with cross-functional teams to minimize schedule impacts.
- Escalate overdue deliverables and unresolved issues before they affect customer commitments or critical project milestones.
- Support project teams in maintaining accurate milestone forecasts and customer commitments.
Deliverable & Commissioning Readiness Management
- Provide oversight of customer-facing engineering and commissioning deliverables from planning through final approval.
- Coordinate responses to RFIs, technical submittals, customer review comments, and other engineering inquiries.
- Ensure deliverables undergo appropriate internal technical and quality review before customer submission.
- Drive the timely resolution and closure of customer comments while maintaining document approval schedules.
- Support commissioning readiness by ensuring required documentation is complete, approved, and aligned with field execution requirements.
- Ensure engineering deliverables are practical, executable, and aligned with FAT, SAT, commissioning, and actual site conditions.
Issue & Risk Management
- Lead coordination and resolution of significant customer technical inquiries and project execution issues.
- Facilitate root cause analysis and corrective action planning for engineering, software, integration, controls, or commissioning challenges.
- Monitor critical issues through formal resolution and closure.
- Identify technical, schedule, organizational, communication, and execution risks early and develop appropriate mitigation plans.
- Escalate unresolved issues with recommended recovery actions to minimize customer and project impacts.
- Establish processes to capture lessons learned and incorporate improvements into future projects, standards, and execution processes.
Change Management
- Provide oversight of customer-requested scope changes throughout project execution.
- Assess the impact of proposed changes on engineering scope, schedules, resources, technical requirements, and commercial commitments.
- Support internal review, coordination, and approval of project change requests.
- Ensure technical, schedule, and project impacts are clearly communicated to customers and internal stakeholders.
- Maintain appropriate records of approved changes, customer decisions, and significant project communications.
Commissioning & Project Closeout Support
- Provide senior-level customer and technical coordination during FAT, SAT, commissioning, and project closeout activities.
- Facilitate technical discussions between customers, engineering teams, software teams, commissioning personnel, and field teams.
- Support the resolution of critical punch list items through final project completion.
- Ensure commissioning documentation is complete, approved, and available before field activities begin.
- Support field teams by ensuring engineering and technical deliverables align with actual site execution requirements.
- Lead or support lessons-learned reviews and implementation of improvements following project completion.
Vendor Registration, AVL & Market Qualification
- Lead and support strategic vendor registration, supplier qualification, and Approved Vendor List (AVL) activities with key customers, EPC contractors, developers, utilities, and Owners.
- Develop strategies to position the company's SCADA, PPC, and systems integration solutions for inclusion on customer AVL and preferred supplier programs.
- Coordinate technical, quality, safety, commercial, organizational, and project reference documentation required for customer qualification processes.
- Participate in customer capability assessments, technical due diligence activities, supplier audits, and qualification meetings.
- Identify customer-specific qualification requirements and coordinate internal resources to address capability or documentation gaps.
- Develop and maintain standardized vendor qualification packages, technical capability presentations, project reference portfolios, and compliance documentation.
- Track the progress and status of strategic AVL and vendor registration opportunities.
- Partner with Business Development and Sales teams to support strategic account development, customer qualification, and market entry initiatives.
Strategic Business & Technical Leadership
- Develop and implement the technical, organizational, and execution strategy for the Systems & Controls organization.
- Identify market trends, customer requirements, technology developments, and competitive opportunities related to utility-scale SCADA, PPC, solar, BESS, and hybrid power plants.
- Support the development of standardized, scalable, reliable, and competitive SCADA, PPC, and systems integration solutions.
- Partner with Business Development and Sales teams to support technical sales, strategic customer engagement, proposals, and business growth initiatives.
- Provide senior leadership with visibility into organizational capability, staffing needs, customer issues, project execution risks, market opportunities, and strategic priorities.
- Recommend investments in talent, technology, tools, engineering capabilities, and processes necessary to support sustainable business growth.
Required Qualifications
- Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, Automation Engineering, or a related technical discipline.
- Fifteen (15) or more years of progressively responsible experience in utility-scale renewable energy, industrial automation, SCADA, PPC, power plant controls, systems integration, or related engineering fields.
- Seven (7) or more years of experience leading engineering, controls, SCADA, automation, project execution, or multidisciplinary technical teams.
- Demonstrated experience managing or leading utility-scale solar, BESS, SCADA, PPC, industrial automation, or systems integration projects.
- Demonstrated experience working directly with customers, EPC contractors, Owners, developers, Independent Engineers, utilities, or other major project stakeholders.
- Strong understanding of utility-scale project execution, including Mechanical Completion (MC), Factory Acceptance Testing (FAT), Site Acceptance Testing (SAT), Substantial Completion (SC), Commercial Operation Date (COD), and project closeout.
- Demonstrated ability to lead organizational improvement, team development, technical capability enhancement, restructuring, or other significant organizational change initiatives.
- Strong technical understanding of SCADA, PPC, communication networks, plant control systems, and systems integration.
- Experience managing engineering document review and approval processes using document management platforms such as Procore, Aconex, SharePoint, or similar systems.
- Strong leadership, communication, negotiation, customer management, and conflict resolution skills.
- Excellent organizational, analytical, strategic thinking, and problem-solving abilities.
- Ability to manage multiple projects, competing priorities, organizational initiatives, and aggressive schedules.
Preferred Qualifications
- Experience rebuilding, restructuring, or scaling an engineering, SCADA, PPC, controls, automation, or project execution organization.
- Previous leadership experience at the Director, Senior Manager, Engineering Manager, or equivalent level.
- Demonstrated experience serving as a senior customer-facing technical or business leader for utility-scale renewable energy or industrial automation projects.
- Experience managing executive-level relationships with EPC contractors, Owners, developers, utilities, Independent Engineers, and strategic customers.
- Experience supporting customer vendor registration, supplier qualification, Approved Vendor List (AVL) registration, or preferred supplier programs.
- Experience preparing and managing customer qualification packages, capability assessments, technical due diligence, supplier audits, and vendor prequalification processes.
- Demonstrated experience supporting Business Development, strategic account management, technical sales, proposal development, or market entry activities.
- Experience recruiting, developing, and mentoring multidisciplinary engineering and project execution teams.
- Experience developing organizational processes, engineering standards, technical governance, and scalable project execution systems.
- Experience supporting utility-scale solar, BESS, and hybrid power plant SCADA and PPC projects.
- Knowledge of utility communication protocols, SCADA architectures, power plant controls, grid integration requirements, and renewable energy plant controls.
- Familiarity with applicable industry standards, utility requirements, and regulatory requirements for utility-scale renewable energy projects.
- Experience with project controls and scheduling software.
- Strong professional network within the U.S. utility-scale renewable energy industry is highly preferred.
Physical & other Requirements:
- Ability to remain seated and work at a computer for extended periods.
- Frequent use of standard office equipment, including computers, keyboards, and communication devices.
- Ability to communicate effectively in person, by phone, and through virtual meeting platforms.
- Occasionally lift and move office materials weighing up to 20 pounds.
- Ability to work in a fast-paced environment with changing priorities and deadlines.
- Travel to customer and project sites, including occasional international travel, as business needs require.
- Must possess or be eligible to obtain a valid passport.
- Must be legally authorized to work in the United States.
COMPENSATION: $165,000 - $186,000 salary
Hanwha Convergence is proud to be an at-will Equal Opportunity Employer and prohibits discrimination against race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender perception or identity, national origin, age, marital status, pregnancy, citizenship, disability, protected veteran status and any other classification protected by applicable federal, state or local law. This policy applies to all terms and conditions of employment, including recruiting, hiring, placement, promotion, termination, layoff, recall, transfer, leaves of absence, compensation and training.
We are committed to the full inclusion of all qualified individuals. As part of this commitment, Hanwha Convergence will provide reasonable accommodations to all qualified individuals with disabilities to participate in the job application or interview process, to perform essential job functions, and/or to receive other benefits and privileges of employment. Please contact us to request accommodations.
Nothing in this statement shall imply implicitly or explicitly a guarantee of employment outside our at-will employment opportunity.
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