Senior Staff Certification Engineer

Our Mission  

SPAN develops products that accelerate the rapid adoption of renewable energy in the home. The flagship SPAN Smart Panel is the first true evolution of the traditional home electric panel, harnessing enhanced technology for metering, monitoring, and control. An expanded product suite of intelligent, integrated solutions radically lowers the cost and complexity of energy upgrades–including solar, batteries and EVs–empowering homeowners to be active, resilient, and informed players in the energy market. 

The Role 

The SPAN Certification Team is comprised of a passionate and driven team of experts, specializing in renewable energy and electrification.  The role will involve work in code & standards execution and implementation, product development, and technical training to support SPAN’s mission of easing the adoption of solar, battery storage, and electrification.

SPAN is looking for a standards and compliance expert to help direct SPAN’s certification strategy. You’ll serve as our resident expert for the many relevant standards we design to; guide and coach our growing design engineering team; and build your own team of test engineers and domain experts to support compliance test execution and work with NRTLs. You will play a critical role in helping SPAN execute its products and help set product strategy. Along the way, you’ll help SPAN develop entirely new classes of energy products — including, but not limited to, innovative interconnection and power conversion products to facilitate more cost-effective and efficient microgrids. As we continue to innovate at SPAN, you will contribute to the development of future codes and standards.

Responsibilities

• Serve as resident expert for a variety of hardware and software safety standards; providing guidance to design engineers.

• Hire, coach, and potentially lead a team of test + certification engineers; own timeline for certification projects.

• Develop SPAN'S certification strategy for new and innovative products. Evaluate the applicability of national and international standards to new and existing SPAN products.

• Convert compliance standards into digestible requirements for the engineers that allow us to innovate within the compliance framework.

• Work with Nationally Recognized Testing Laboratories (NRTLs)

• Be the main owner of SPAN'S relationships with NRTLs to establish an agreement on the interpretation of standards.

• Work with system architects to run safety analyses & document SPAN'S development practices.

• Work with the hardware test team to define and oversee the execution of certification pre-testing during development builds.

• Help to support compliance standard developments, working with the National Electrical Code (NEC) code making panels and UL to create new and modify existing code to enable easier adoption of distributed energy resources and electrified buildings.

About You 

Required Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s/graduate degree in electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, or related

• 8+ years' professional experience with standards and compliance, including managing relationships with NRTLs, running tests, and informing design

• Proven track record with residential and commercial electrical products. Passion for distributed energy and electrification

• Deep understanding of the “Certification mindset” and the underlying rationale behind core hardware certification concepts (e.g. creepage and clearance, temperature testing)

• Experience working with the National Electrical Code. Knowledge of energy storage systems, photovoltaics, and backup power systems

• Knowledge of UL product standards for residential energy products (e.g. UL 67, UL 916, UL 1741, UL 1998, UL 1008) and solid Knowledge of grid interoperability standards (e.g. IEEE 1547, IEEE 2030).

• Experience taking products through functional safety evaluations (UL 1998, ISO 26262, IEC 60730, or equivalent)

• Experience developing safety concepts and performing hardware safety evaluations

• Experience mentoring junior engineers and building teams

Bonus Qualifications:

• Experience with smart-grid communications standards (e.g. IEEE 2030.5), utility standards (e.g. PG&E Greenbook), and/or metering standards (ANSI C12.20)

• Experience leading the certification of power electronics products for renewable energy applications

• Experience representing companies on standards committees

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