CAD Services and Design Systems Engineer

Reports to: Vice President, Engineering

Preferred location: North Hollywood, CA preferred / consider Salt Lake City, UT or remote (West to Central time zone)

Classification: Full-time, Exempt

Company Overview

GroundWork Renewables is the solar industry’s trusted full-stack performance partner. A Certified B Corporation and ISO-accredited testing provider, we deliver precise MET data and PV module insights—helping developers, EPCs, and asset owners reduce risk, improve forecasting, and maximize value throughout the project lifecycle. Our services have enabled 1,000 solar measurement campaigns, helping project developers secure billions in financing by reducing uncertainty with trusted resource data. Backed by a recent strategic investment that positions us for accelerated growth, GroundWork is expanding its U.S. operations.

Position Summary

The CAD Services and Design Systems Engineer is the technical owner of GroundWork's engineering design environment. This role ensures that design tools, standards, workflows, automation, and controlled design data enable consistent, efficient, manufacturable, and field-ready engineering deliverables.

Operating with a high degree of independence, this position provides functional leadership within the Systems Engineering department through standards, expertise, training, and platform ownership. As well as, partners with Key Stakeholders (Manufacturing, Field Services, Project Management, IT, and Procurement) it does not supervise employees or own final engineering design approval.

Key Responsibilities

CAD Standards and Platform Ownership

• Serve as the Engineering owner for AutoCAD, Autodesk Inventor, Bluebeam, and related design applications, configurations, add-ins, workspaces, profiles, plot settings, and approved integrations.
• Coordinate with IT on software deployment, account provisioning, access controls, version updates, backups, and technical support boundaries.
• Administer and optimize design-software licensing with IT and Procurement, including license allocation, utilization monitoring, renewals, vendor coordination, and cost-control recommendations.
• Own, document, release, and maintain CAD and graphical model and drawing standards, including templates, title blocks, layers, annotations, symbols, standard blocks, assemblies, details, drawing numbers, file naming, revision conventions, plotting, and PDF/markup practices.
• Establish controlled methods to release, revise, retire, and archive standard CAD assets and prevent obsolete content from being used.
• Maintain approved sample drawing packages, reusable design libraries, and documented standards aligned with current GroundWork products and manufacturing practices.
• Facilitate standards decisions with engineering stakeholders and ensure approved changes are implemented consistently across tools and workflows.
• Support document-control and configuration-control requirements without assuming ownership of engineering authority, the item master, or formal change approval.

CAD Automation and Engineering Productivity

• Identify, prioritize, develop, test, and deploy automation that reduces repetitive design work and improves drawing-package throughput.
• Maintain a documented automation backlog prioritized by business value, implementation effort, risk, and expected engineering hours saved.
• Measure realized productivity improvements and maintain supportable documentation, version control, testing, and recovery methods for deployed automation.

Drawing Quality Systems

• Assist with developing and maintaining CAD-specific QA/QC checklists, automated standards checks, drawing-package readiness criteria, and approved reference examples.
• Analyze redlines, rework, standards-related findings, and recurring documentation defects to identify root causes and corrective improvements.
• Ensure that released drawings use current templates, libraries, naming conventions, and graphical standards.
• Support peer reviews and drawing-package readiness reviews while preserving the responsible engineer's accountability for technical correctness and final approval.
• Translate recurring manufacturing and field-documentation issues into approved improvements to details, templates, standards, and training.
• Serve as the design-technology integration partner to the System Configuration/PLM function for AutoCAD, Inventor, PLM/PDM, NetSuite, SKU, BOM, and controlled-document workflows.
• Provide and track training completion, demonstrated competency, and adoption of current standards and workflows.

Cross-Functional Design Improvement

• Partner with engineers and Stakeholders to implement approved new and revised product designs, standard assemblies, and documentation improvements.
• Establish feedback loops with Manufacturing and Field Services to improve drawing clarity, manufacturability, installability, and serviceability.
• Support complex design, prototyping, standards development, and temporary workload surges; routine production drafting is a limited secondary responsibility.
• Participate in process-improvement initiatives affecting the creation, review, release, and downstream use of engineering documentation.
• Communicate platform risks, technical debt, adoption barriers, and investment needs to Systems Engineering leadership.

Qualifications & Experience

• Associate or bachelor's degree in engineering, engineering technology, computer-aided design, information systems, or a closely related technical field; equivalent advanced technical training and relevant experience may be considered.
• Seven or more years of progressive experience supporting engineering design, CAD administration, design technology, drafting standards, or related engineering workflows.
• Advanced proficiency with AutoCAD and demonstrated experience administering Autodesk products (Inventor, Electrical, and MEP), profiles, standards, templates, libraries, and user environments.
• Demonstrated ability to create and maintain CAD standards, controlled design assets, QA/QC methods, and technical documentation.
• Strong understanding of engineering-document lifecycles, revision control, metadata, BOMs, SKUs, and cross-functional product documentation.
• Experience integrating CAD or PDM platforms with PLM, ERP, or product-data systems; NetSuite experience is preferred.
• Experience in renewable energy, utility-scale solar, meteorological systems, industrial equipment, electrical enclosures, instrumentation, or engineered-to-order manufacturing.
• Knowledge of design for manufacturability, installation, serviceability, and long-term reliability.
• Experience working with Product Lifecycle Management (PLM/PDM), or process-improvement systems.
• Experience building design-technology roadmaps, business cases, software evaluations, migration plans, and adoption programs.
• Experience applying AI-assisted tools to document QA, data validation, or engineering workflow improvement within approved process governance procedure.

GroundWork is a Certified B Corporation and proud equal opportunity employer. We believe a diverse, equitable, and just team makes our work better, and our field a better place to be. We are committed to building a workplace where people feel welcomed, valued, and supported. We hire, promote, and develop people based on their skills, experience, and potential. We do not discriminate based on age, race, ethnicity, religion, color, sex, national origin, marital status, sexual orientation, gender identity, veteran status, disability, pregnancy status, or any other characteristic protected by law. We are a fair chance employer. We’re committed to building a team that reflects the communities we serve, and we’re actively developing the programs to get us there.

This work is ongoing. If you need a reasonable accommodation at any point in the application or interview process, just let us know.

Pay: $90,000.00 - $95,000.00 per year

Benefits:

• 401(k)
• Dental insurance
• Employee assistance program
• Flexible schedule
• Flexible spending account
• Health insurance
• Health savings account
• Paid time off
• Parental leave
• Vision insurance

Work Location: Remote

Salary : $90,000 - $95,000