Job Title: Staff Electrical Engineer, Power Systems Studies
Job Description
Trystar’s team members are our most important asset. We are looking for a Staff Electrical Engineer, Power Systems Studies, to own the short-circuit, protective device coordination, arc-flash, and grounding studies that decide how our power conversion and power distribution products are rated, protected, and labeled. Most of this work concerns DC systems up to 1500 VDC, including 800 VDC class architectures for data centers and other critical power applications, where fault current comes from power converters, capacitor banks, and batteries, and must be designed for interrupting high DC faults safely. The Staff Electrical Engineer will also perform AC studies when a product or system requires them. This role conducts studies during design, while ratings and protection choices can still change, and you will set the study methods, models, and acceptance criteria that other engineers use. Serving as a senior individual contributor, this position leads technically complex and high-risk analyses, represents electrical engineering in design decisions on safety, availability, and cost, and mentors the engineers who prepare and use study results.
Location: Faribault or Burnsville, MN, onsite, is preferred; Houston, TX; Charlotte, NC; Victoria, BC; and Loveland, CO, will be considered. Travel within North America up to 20%.
In this role you will:
- Own the short-circuit, protective device coordination, arc-flash, and grounding studies for assigned DC and AC power conversion and power distribution products and systems, from concept through certification and into commercial-scale manufacturing.
- Build and maintain system models of power converters, rectifiers, battery and supercapacitor energy storage, capacitor banks, busbars, cables, and protective devices, and validate model inputs against manufacturer data and test results.
- Calculate DC fault currents, including peak values and rates of rise contributed by power converters, capacitor banks, and batteries, using recognized methods such as IEC 61660-1 and IEEE 946, and calculate AC fault currents using IEEE and IEC methods.
- Coordinate fuses, thermal-magnetic, electronic, and solid-state circuit breakers, and converter current limits for selectivity, and recommend device ratings and settings.
- Perform DC and AC arc-flash analyses, determine incident energy and arc-flash boundaries, specify equipment labels, and identify design changes that reduce arc-flash hazard.
- Analyze grounding and isolation for grounded and ungrounded DC systems, including insulation monitoring, first-fault behavior, and ground-fault detection and location.
- Verify equipment short-circuit withstand and interrupting ratings against study results and provide system and transient overvoltage inputs to the engineers who set insulation, clearance, and creepage.
- Define study methods, templates, model libraries, and acceptance criteria, and review studies prepared by other engineers, suppliers, and consultants.
- Convert study results into design requirements for power electronics, controls, power distribution, and mechanical engineers, and into test requirements and acceptance criteria for design validation.
- Prepare, with compliance engineering, the calculations and study reports that certification bodies and authorities having jurisdiction require.
- Support customers, applications engineers, and sales with study results, application guidance, and technical input to proposals.
- Lead design reviews and risk analyses on fault, protection, and grounding topics, resolve the trade-offs among safety, availability, cost, and footprint, and manage the scope, schedule, and stakeholders of complex study work.
- Investigate protection maloperations and field failures, and lead root-cause analysis of fault and protection issues.
- Evaluate emerging DC protection technologies and standards, such as solid-state circuit breakers and recommended practices for DC distribution in data centers and bring their requirements into Trystar designs.
- Mentor engineers, review their analyses, and strengthen the power systems study competency of the engineering organization.
Qualifications
REQUIRED
- Bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering or a related technical field, with typically 10 or more years of relevant industrial experience, including substantial hands-on work performing power system studies.
- Demonstrated ability to independently perform and review short-circuit, protective device coordination, and arc-flash studies.
- Proficiency with at least one power system analysis platform, such as ETAP, SKM PowerTools, or EasyPower.
- Working knowledge of DC fault behavior, DC protection, and DC arc-flash methods, including fault interruption without a natural current zero and fault contribution from converters, capacitors, and batteries.
- Knowledge of applicable codes and standards, such as NFPA 70, NFPA 70E, IEEE 1584, and the IEEE 3000 series.
- Experience applying circuit breakers, fuses, trip units, and protective relays, and selecting their ratings and settings.
- Experience analyzing grounding systems and the fault behavior of grounded and ungrounded systems.
- Technical writing that produces study reports able to stand on their own for engineering, certification, and customer audiences.
- Demonstrated ability to lead complex, high-risk technical work, influence cross-functional teams, and mentor engineers.
PREFERRED
- Master’s degree in electrical engineering with a power systems focus.
- Professional Engineer (PE or P.Eng.) license.
- Hands-on DC studies at 600 VDC or more, for example in battery energy storage, solar, data center, rail traction, or DC microgrid systems.
- Experience applying IEC 61660-1, IEEE 946, and the DC arc-flash methods referenced in NFPA 70E.
- Experience with insulation monitoring devices and insulation fault location in ungrounded systems, such as those covered by IEC 61557-8.
- Experience modelling power converter fault behavior with PSCAD, MATLAB/Simulink, or Python.
- Experience with solid-state and hybrid DC circuit breakers.
- Experience with product safety standards and listing for power distribution and power conversion equipment, such as UL 891 and UL 62477-1.
- Experience with ground grid studies under IEEE 80.
- Participation in standards development, for example IEEE or IEC working groups on DC systems.
- Experience with data centers or other critical power applications.
- NFPA 70E certification.
Skills
- Analytical rigor and attention to detail in modelling, calculation, and model validation.
- Sound engineering judgment in setting conservative assumptions where data are incomplete.
- Clear written and verbal communication of study results, assumptions, and limitations to technical and non-technical audiences.
- Collaborative technical leadership across power electronics, power distribution, controls, mechanical, systems, test, and compliance engineering.
- Ability to plan, prioritize, and deliver studies against a design schedule.
