EPSE, Principal; Systems & Services

Position Description

Seattle City Light, a department of the City of Seattle, is one of the nation’s largest municipally owned utilities in terms of the number of customers served. Over the years we have worked very hard to keep Seattle’s electricity affordable, reliable, and environmentally sound. Today City Light is a recognized national leader in energy efficiency and environmental stewardship.

City Light is seeking a Principal Electrical Power Systems Engineer to oversee staff supporting Systems and Services in the Distribution Engineering Unit at the Seattle Municipal Tower. In this position, you will oversee cable replacements—including support for the approaching Progressive Design-Build contract to improve reliability, oversee overhead and underground equipment replacements, distribution automation improvement efforts, system reliability improvements, system expansions or capacity improvements, as well as Capital Projects including the University of Washington, South Lake Union, Sound Transit, First Hill, WSDOT 520, and other customer-driven projects.

If you are bringing your PE certification from another state, you will have 12 months to obtain a Washington State PE via test or comity. This position will report to the Engineering Customer Systems Senior Manager.

• Performing or supervising the planning and design of the overhead and underground electrical system and large services for the Department’s residential, commercial, and industrial customers;
• Ensuring that the projects are prioritized and designed properly and promptly, and that appropriate design guidelines and sound engineering principles are utilized;
• Supervising the preparation and issuance of cost estimates, customer construction drawings, customer requirements documents, service installation drawings and material requirements according to design guidelines;
• Performing project management on large, service-related projects such as the University of Washington, South Lake Union, Sound Transit, Port of Seattle, King County, First Hill, and WSDOT 520;
• Participating in the review of Requirements for Electric Service Connection manual, reviewing and recommending updates to Departmental Policies and Procedures, participating on service-related panels, planning for the group’s required training, managing the system engineering group workload;
• Participating in engineering panels, preparing hiring documents and making recommendations for hiring, if requested;
• Providing group information to be compiled for the Division’s bi-weekly/quarterly reports;
• Performing special projects as assigned by the unit manager;
• Developing and training engineers, holding group accountable for deliverables, coaching non-engineers about electrical design and safety;
• Performing Plan Review of Seattle Department of Transportation and private Street Use contracts;
• Reviewing City of Seattle capital projects, Land Use, UMP, SIP, and MUP plan sets;
• Providing electrical engineering design support to other Seattle City Light units as well as other City of Seattle departments, suburban cities and outside agencies.

In addition to the skills and experience mentioned below, a successful applicant will have experience that reflects a commitment to creating fair and equitable outcomes and has:

• This class requires a total of eight years’ experience:
  Six years professional electrical power systems engineering experience equivalent to the Electrical Power Systems Engineer level. An additional two years’ supervisory, lead or project management experience is required to be a supervising Principal Electrical Power Systems Engineer. To perform the technical expert work of this classification requires an additional two years advanced experience with defining, interpreting and organizing major system-wide transmission or distribution projects that involve multiple jurisdictions and complex engineering circumstances.
  
  A Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering is also required. A Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering may be substituted for one year of experience.

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