SCADA Engineer – Energy Optimization (Technical Focus)
About Altus Power
Altus Power develops, owns, and operates distributed solar, storage, and electrification assets across the U.S. With over 1.3 GW of solar capacity deployed across 30 states, our systems rely on robust, secure, and highly available SCADA and OT communication infrastructures. Our Energy Optimization team ensures these systems deliver accurate telemetry, stable controls, and reliable data pipelines to support enterprise monitoring, diagnostics, forecasting, and plant-level control strategies.
About the Position
Altus Power is currently seeking a highly motivated and qualified SCADA Engineer to join its Energy Optimization team. The SCADA Engineer is responsible for sustaining and enhancing the operational technology (OT) stack used across Altus Power’s generation portfolio. This role focuses on the configuration, deployment, and troubleshooting of data acquisition systems, industrial communication networks, power-plant controllers, RTUs, and site-level IT infrastructure.
You will work in a mixed environment involving industrial protocols (DNP3, Modbus, OPC-UA), automation hardware (SEL relays, metering devices, industrial routers/switches), and software platforms including N3uron, Ignition, Linux-based edge systems, and SQL-backed data stores. The engineer ensures reliable data flows from field assets to enterprise analytics environments and supports continuous improvement of SCADA architecture, cybersecurity posture, and documentation standards.
Responsibilities:
Primary Technical Responsibilities
SCADA Infrastructure & Control Systems
· Configure and maintain SCADA servers, historian nodes, N3uron gateways, OPC-UA bridges, and MQTT-based data pipelines.
· Develop, modify, and validate logic within SCADA modules, including control sequences, alarms, failover logic, heartbeat monitoring, and device polling strategies.
· Manage integration of new field devices (inverters, revenue meters, relays, DAS units, PPAs/PLCs) into N3uron or Ignition environments.
· Implement and optimize communication topologies including client/server, publish/subscribe, and outbound-only architectures for secured external WAN connections.
Industrial Networks & Communication Layer
· Configure routers, cellular modems, firewalls, managed switches, and VPN appliances used across solar and storage facilities.
· Design, maintain, and troubleshoot multi-layer topologies involving Ethernet, serial, fiber, and wireless radio networks.
· Perform packet capture, protocol decoding, and network path diagnostics (TCP/IP stack analysis, ARP, VLAN tagging, NAT rules, and routing tables).
· Validate communication resilience through watchdogs, redundancy groups, LTE failover logic, and firewall ACL tuning.
Protocol Engineering
· Implement and troubleshoot DNP3, Modbus TCP/RTU, OPC-UA, and SEL protocol stacks for telemetry, status, and control operations.
· Create and revise DNP/Modbus maps, point lists, polling intervals, register scaling, timestamp behavior, and unsolicited/sequence-of-events reporting.
· Work directly with SEL relays/meters for settings updates, logic adjustments, firmware upgrades, and secure remote access configurations.
Field Support & Remote Diagnostics
· Provide real-time support to on-site engineers, subcontractors, and commissioning partners during equipment replacement, network construction, and SCADA cutovers.
· Diagnose issues with site PLCs, sensors, fiber-optic links, network congestion, inverter data feeds, and PPC responsiveness.
· Perform root-cause analysis of data gaps, communication faults, control system outages, and hardware failures.
System Reliability, Cybersecurity & Documentation
· Implement hardened configurations across Linux and Windows hosts, including SSH hardening, VPN profiles, firewall rules, and credential rotation.
· Monitor system health using logs, process states, interface counters, historian back-fill operations, and alarm KPIs.
· Maintain detailed documentation for site network diagrams, firewall maps, SCADA logic flows, equipment inventories, and remote-access procedures.
· Contribute to SCADA standards for version control, patching schedules, naming conventions, and backup/restore processes.
Qualifications:
Technical Qualifications
· Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering, Automation/Controls, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, or related discipline.
· 4+ years of direct SCADA/OT experience in energy, utility, or industrial automation environments.
· Expert troubleshooting ability across:
· TCP/IP, serial RS-485/RS-232, fiber-optic networks
· DNP3, Modbus (TCP & RTU), OPC-UA
· VPN tunnels (IPSec, OpenVPN), firewalls, NAT, port-forward rules
· Managed switches, packet capture tools, and network monitoring utilities
· Hands-on experience with routers, cellular gateways, managed switches, industrial firewalls, and IT/OT segmentation.
· Proficiency in Linux (system services, file permissions, networking tools) and Windows (services, firewall, event logs).
· Experience with N3uron, Ignition, SQL databases, SEL products (SEL-751, SEL-3530, SEL-735, etc.), and industrial communication drivers.
· Ability to travel up to 30% for field diagnostics, commissioning, and hardware replacements.
· Proficiency using Microsoft Office Suite, SharePoint, MS Teams, Smartsheet, and Power BI for reporting and task coordination.
Work Life at Altus
Our team is the asset we are most proud of. We aim to create a positive work-life balance.
Here are a few of the benefits we offer:
• Competitive compensation
• Health and Dental Insurance (100% of premium paid of Company’s standard policy)
• Participation in 401k Plan
• Paid cell phone service on Company’s plan
• Company paid lunch in the office
• Company paid membership to building gym
• Two monthly work from home days
Altus is unequivocally committed to the principles of equal employment.
