Senior Substation Automation Engineer - Grid Modernization

 

Together, we own our company, our future, and our shared success.

 

As an employee-owned company, our people are Black & Veatch. We put them at the center of everything we do and empower them to grow, explore new possibilities and use their diverse talents and perspectives to solve humanity's biggest challenges in an ever-evolving world. With over 100 years of innovation in sustainable infrastructure and our expertise in engineering, procurement, consulting and construction, together we are building a world of difference.  

 

Company : Black & Veatch Corporation  

Req Id : 114566 

Opportunity Type : Staff 

Relocation eligible : Yes 

Full time/Part time : Full-Time  

Project Only Hire : No 

Visa Sponsorship Available: No 

Why Black and Veatch

Black & Veatch allows you to lend your talent and perspective to humanity’s biggest challenges in a flexible environment where you are empowered to grow and explore new possibilities. We offer competitive compensation; 401K match and benefits that start day one.

 

Our hybrid environment allows you to balance your work and personal life. At Black & Veatch, you own your career with purpose and meaning. You are empowered to grow and explore new possibilities at every step of your career journey. Bring your big ideas knowing you are safe to be who you are and speak up with concerns or questions and put your diverse talents and perspectives to use.

#LI-TF1

The Opportunity

In this role, you may have the opportunity to:

• Lead the transition of IEC 61850‑based digital and virtual substations from pilot to production, shaping real-world grid modernization outcomes.
• Design and standardize secure, vendor‑agnostic substation automation architectures that improve resilience, flexibility, and scalability.
• Serve as a technical leader and subject‑matter expert, influencing system architecture, best practices, and emerging standards.
• Collaborate with utilities, technology partners, and industry groups (including vPAC Alliance) to help define the future of protection, automation, and control.

 

Candidates located near any Black & Veatch U.S. Regional Office (bv.com/offices) may be considered, with preference for the following locations - Kansas City (KS), Atlanta (GA), Raleigh  (NC), Dallas (TX), Houston (TX), Orlando (FL), Portland (OR) or Phoenix (AZ).

The Team

Black & Veatch is expanding its Power SCADA team to support a strategic grid modernization initiative focused on IEC 61850‑based substation automation and virtual substation technologies. As a founding member of the Virtual Protection, Automation, and Control (vPAC) Alliance, Black & Veatch is collaborating with industry leaders to advance open, secure, and vendor‑agnostic digital substation solutions that replace traditional, hardware‑intensive architectures with virtualized, software‑defined platforms. Following successful pilot efforts, BV is now transitioning virtual substations into production environments. This role is being created to bring in experienced SCADA professionals who can help design, implement, standardize, and support production‑ready Power SCADA solutions that enable resilient, flexible, and future‑ready grid infrastructure.  

Key Responsibilities

IEC 61850 Engineering & Modeling 

• Develop SCL engineering artifacts including ICD, CID, and SCD files, datasets, logical node mappings, reporting and control blocks, and GOOSE publications and subscriptions.
• Configure and validate MMS, GOOSE, and SV messaging for protection, automation, monitoring, and SCADA applications. 

 

Substation Networking & Time Synchronization 

• Design and document station-bus and process-bus network architectures using PRP/HSR, VLANs, QoS, multicast management, and traffic segmentation practices.
• Design deterministic real-time networking paths for time-sensitive protection and automation applications, incorporating latency budgeting, PTP timing performance, and behaviors defined for substation-class devices meeting IEC 61850-3 and IEEE 1613 environmental and EMC requirements.
• Diagnose and optimize real-time network behavior through traffic-capture analysis, timing-accuracy evaluation, and system-level tuning techniques for time-critical digital-substation workloa