Electrical Engineer - New England

Company: Multi-discipline engineering firm

Salary: Up to $160,000, plus a discretionary annual bonus plus up to $10,000 sign on, if required

About the work

This is consulting-side building services electrical, taken from concept through construction administration. The engineer who designs a system is the one who answers for it on site, so the seat does not split into a drawing job and a site job done by different people.

The firm works across roughly 35 states. Around half the workload is federal, sitting alongside commercial, healthcare and education projects. Every other discipline on a project is designed in house rather than subcontracted, so the electrical scope is developed alongside the other teams rather than negotiated across a contract.

In this role you will take projects end to end rather than being handed one component of them, and there is no layer of people between you and the work.

Role accountabilities

Power distribution design

Own the power design for a building. Size and select service equipment, distribution and branch circuiting, and carry load calculations, voltage drop and short circuit considerations through design development. Coordinate the incoming service and the standby or emergency provision where a project calls for one.

Control and communications systems

Design the control and low voltage communications scope alongside the power design, and coordinate it with the mechanical controls and the wider technology requirements on a project.

Lighting design

Produce the lighting design and the associated controls, working to the code and energy requirements applying on each project.

Submittals, RFIs and construction administration

Review submittals and shop drawings, answer RFIs, and carry the design intent through construction to close out. Site visits are part of the role rather than the majority of it.

Federal project delivery

Around half the workload is federal, including DoD sites. This work carries its own criteria and review process, and the engineer on a project is expected to know it rather than route around it.

Working across disciplines

Coordinate the electrical scope with the other design disciplines in house. This is a multi-disciplinary team, so the electrical position on a building is agreed with the people designing the rest of it rather than with an outside consultant.

The experience that fits best here

You would be designing a system and then defending it through submittals, RFIs and site queries, so five or more years in a consulting or A/E environment is the base that fits best. Time spent purely on contractor-side installation, or purely on drafting to someone else's design, is a narrower fit.

You would be working in AutoCAD and Revit day to day, producing and coordinating the electrical model alongside the other disciplines.

You would be taking projects end to end without close supervision, so this suits someone who can hold a position on a design question and see it through rather than escalate it.

You would be attending federal sites, so you need to be able to obtain unescorted base access. That is the one hard requirement on the role.

You would be working alongside other disciplines daily, so the ability to explain an electrical constraint to a mechanical or structural engineer, and to take theirs seriously, matters as much as the technical work.

A BS in electrical engineering or electrical engineering technology sits behind the role. A Professional Engineer license is preferred but it is not required to apply. It does matter for one thing specifically: the weekly on-site expectation is flexed only for senior engineers who hold one and are set up to work independently.

Also useful, though not needed to apply

• Professional Engineer (PE) license, in one state or several
• Federal, DoD or NAVFAC project experience
• Healthcare, laboratory or higher education project experience
• Lighting certification, for example NCQLP
• Power systems analysis software, for example SKM, EasyPower or ETAP
• Lighting calculation software, for example AGi32
• Structured cabling or communications credentials, for example RCDD
• Experience at a contractor or in the field moving into consulting

Benefits

• 401(k) with employer match
• Dental, vision, short term disability, long term disability and life insurance, employee premium paid in full
• Generous holiday package
• Paid parental leave
• Half day Fridays during summer time
• Remote working and flexible hours as standing policy, with a $250 budget for home office equipment
• Monthly cell phone stipend
• Continuing education and additional state PE registrations funded where the firm requires them
• Free parking, and a state park pass for you and your vehicle etc.