Microgrid Protections Engineer
Top Benefits
About the role
**Location & Team Gatherings
Intersect has been a fully flexible workplace since its founding in 2016. We’ve been very intentional about the way we do things. We are not work-from-home, hybrid, or in-office – we are any and all of those options! Deepening social connections and offering shared experiences is a cornerstone of the way we work. We connect as a team at our Team Week experiences four times a year and at our recently established Hub locations - SF Bay Area, NYC Metro Area, NY; Denver, CO; Houston, TX; Calgary, AB; and Toronto, ON.
We are currently looking for candidates located within 60 miles of any of the listed hubs to foster more in-person connections while maintaining our flexible remote culture.
**About This Role
As part of Intersect’s Microgrid Engineering team, you’ll design and validate electrical protection schemes that safeguard personnel and equipment while maximizing system uptime across complex microgrid environments. You’ll collaborate closely with electrical design engineers, controls teams, equipment suppliers, utility operators, and operations partners to deliver protection relay configurations that are safe, robust, well-tested, and aligned with performance and reliability requirements across all operating modes. Your work will help prove what’s possible—supporting microgrids that reliably power gigawatts of critical datacenter loads at a scale the world has yet to see.
**Team Overview
This team plays a critical role in advancing Intersect’s mission to accelerate the clean energy transition, supporting large-scale infrastructure that delivers reliable, cost-effective power. The Microgrid Engineering team collaborates across engineering, controls, and external partners to design, test, and validate systems that operate under complex and demanding conditions. Joining this team means contributing to high-impact projects while growing your technical depth alongside experienced engineers tackling some of the industry’s most challenging power system problems.
**What You’ll Do
Design and Coordinate Protection Schemes
•
Design hardware and software-based electrical protection schemes for microgrid generation assets including batteries, wind, PV, reciprocating engines, and turbines across grid-connected, islanded, abnormal, and contingency operating modes
•
Perform or oversee protection coordination studies and develop relay settings that ensure selectivity, reliability, and system safety
Integrate Protection with System Design and Controls
•
Partner with electrical design, power systems, and controls teams to understand system behavior, communication limitations, and control responses that influence protection design
•
Ensure protection interactions are well understood, properly coordinated, and integrated with supervisory controls and SCADA systems
Evaluate Equipment and Define Protection Requirements
•
Review supplier documentation for transformers, switchgear, BESS, wind turbines, PV, reciprocating engines, and turbines to understand damage thresholds, risks, and operating limits
•
Define appropriate protection functions, logic, and setpoints based on equipment characteristics and system requirements
Support Testing, Commissioning, and Lifecycle Reliability
•
Develop clear documentation and configuration packages including relay settings, logic diagrams, and interface specifications with version control and traceability
•
Support site testing and commissioning activities, including end-to-end functional testing and relay verification using test equipment
•
Assist with post-event root-cause analysis by reviewing relay oscillography and event logs to improve system safety and reliability
**What You’ll Bring
• M.S. or PhD in Electrical Engineering with an emphasis in power systems or control systems.
• 5–10+ years of experience in electrical protection design, relay settings development, and coordination studies.
• Hands-on experience designing protections for utility-scale or industrial power systems.
• Experience with islanded or weak-grid systems is a plus.
• Proficiency with protection relay logic, coordination analysis, and commissioning using relay test equipment such as OMICRON or Doble.
• Familiarity with arc flash analysis, equipment duty calculations, and lockout/tagout procedures.
• Understanding of inverter operating modes, fault ride-through behavior, and current-limited fault response.
• Experience collaborating with transmission system operators on interconnection studies and protection coordination.
• Familiarity with protection communications protocols such as IEC 61850, GOOSE messaging, DNP3, or Modbus, with awareness of cybersecurity considerations.
• A detail-oriented, safety-first mindset and collaborative work style that supports reliable, field-ready system designs.
**Total Rewards
At Intersect, we care about your well-being, growth, and balance. Here’s how we support you:
**Total Compensation: USD$185,000 - $195,000 (total compensation includes base salary + bonus)
**Health & wellness: 100% premium coverage for you and your dependents on medical, dental, and vision
**Time to recharge: Unlimited PTO, plus two company-wide breaks (Fourth of July & end of year)
**Family support: Up to 12 weeks of fully paid parental leave, plus 6 additional weeks for birth parents; access to family planning and family care support through Carrot and Maven
**Mental health: Free access to Spring Health, including 5 free therapy and psychiatry sessions, plus a Headspace account for mindfulness and meditation through our physical health vendor, Wellhub+
**Perks & extras: $150 monthly food stipend, $150 monthly reimbursement for cell phone and internet, pet insurance allowance, full home office setup, free access to UrbanSitter with $625 in quarterly company-paid credits, ActiveHero, and One MedicalReady to apply your protection engineering expertise at meaningful scale? Apply now and help design resilient microgrid systems that support critical infrastructure while building a career with lasting impact.
We may use artificial intelligence (AI) tools to support parts of the hiring process, such as reviewing applications, analyzing resumes, or assessing responses. These tools assist our recruitment team but do not replace human judgment. Final hiring decisions are ultimately made by humans. If you would like more information about how your data is processed, please contact us.************************
About Intersect
Intersect is a pivotal component of the Australian research landscape. We help researchers accelerate their impact through innovative technologies and expert advice, working closely with our members and the wider research community.
We worry about the things researchers shouldn’t have to - transferring focus to reducing the time from hypothesis to tested results.
Intersect delivers expert advice, compute and analysis platforms, data storage, custom engineering, consultation and training programs to thousands of researchers every year.
Microgrid Protections Engineer
Top Benefits
About the role
**Location & Team Gatherings
Intersect has been a fully flexible workplace since its founding in 2016. We’ve been very intentional about the way we do things. We are not work-from-home, hybrid, or in-office – we are any and all of those options! Deepening social connections and offering shared experiences is a cornerstone of the way we work. We connect as a team at our Team Week experiences four times a year and at our recently established Hub locations - SF Bay Area, NYC Metro Area, NY; Denver, CO; Houston, TX; Calgary, AB; and Toronto, ON.
We are currently looking for candidates located within 60 miles of any of the listed hubs to foster more in-person connections while maintaining our flexible remote culture.
**About This Role
As part of Intersect’s Microgrid Engineering team, you’ll design and validate electrical protection schemes that safeguard personnel and equipment while maximizing system uptime across complex microgrid environments. You’ll collaborate closely with electrical design engineers, controls teams, equipment suppliers, utility operators, and operations partners to deliver protection relay configurations that are safe, robust, well-tested, and aligned with performance and reliability requirements across all operating modes. Your work will help prove what’s possible—supporting microgrids that reliably power gigawatts of critical datacenter loads at a scale the world has yet to see.
**Team Overview
This team plays a critical role in advancing Intersect’s mission to accelerate the clean energy transition, supporting large-scale infrastructure that delivers reliable, cost-effective power. The Microgrid Engineering team collaborates across engineering, controls, and external partners to design, test, and validate systems that operate under complex and demanding conditions. Joining this team means contributing to high-impact projects while growing your technical depth alongside experienced engineers tackling some of the industry’s most challenging power system problems.
**What You’ll Do
Design and Coordinate Protection Schemes
•
Design hardware and software-based electrical protection schemes for microgrid generation assets including batteries, wind, PV, reciprocating engines, and turbines across grid-connected, islanded, abnormal, and contingency operating modes
•
Perform or oversee protection coordination studies and develop relay settings that ensure selectivity, reliability, and system safety
Integrate Protection with System Design and Controls
•
Partner with electrical design, power systems, and controls teams to understand system behavior, communication limitations, and control responses that influence protection design
•
Ensure protection interactions are well understood, properly coordinated, and integrated with supervisory controls and SCADA systems
Evaluate Equipment and Define Protection Requirements
•
Review supplier documentation for transformers, switchgear, BESS, wind turbines, PV, reciprocating engines, and turbines to understand damage thresholds, risks, and operating limits
•
Define appropriate protection functions, logic, and setpoints based on equipment characteristics and system requirements
Support Testing, Commissioning, and Lifecycle Reliability
•
Develop clear documentation and configuration packages including relay settings, logic diagrams, and interface specifications with version control and traceability
•
Support site testing and commissioning activities, including end-to-end functional testing and relay verification using test equipment
•
Assist with post-event root-cause analysis by reviewing relay oscillography and event logs to improve system safety and reliability
**What You’ll Bring
• M.S. or PhD in Electrical Engineering with an emphasis in power systems or control systems.
• 5–10+ years of experience in electrical protection design, relay settings development, and coordination studies.
• Hands-on experience designing protections for utility-scale or industrial power systems.
• Experience with islanded or weak-grid systems is a plus.
• Proficiency with protection relay logic, coordination analysis, and commissioning using relay test equipment such as OMICRON or Doble.
• Familiarity with arc flash analysis, equipment duty calculations, and lockout/tagout procedures.
• Understanding of inverter operating modes, fault ride-through behavior, and current-limited fault response.
• Experience collaborating with transmission system operators on interconnection studies and protection coordination.
• Familiarity with protection communications protocols such as IEC 61850, GOOSE messaging, DNP3, or Modbus, with awareness of cybersecurity considerations.
• A detail-oriented, safety-first mindset and collaborative work style that supports reliable, field-ready system designs.
**Total Rewards
At Intersect, we care about your well-being, growth, and balance. Here’s how we support you:
**Total Compensation: USD$185,000 - $195,000 (total compensation includes base salary + bonus)
**Health & wellness: 100% premium coverage for you and your dependents on medical, dental, and vision
**Time to recharge: Unlimited PTO, plus two company-wide breaks (Fourth of July & end of year)
**Family support: Up to 12 weeks of fully paid parental leave, plus 6 additional weeks for birth parents; access to family planning and family care support through Carrot and Maven
**Mental health: Free access to Spring Health, including 5 free therapy and psychiatry sessions, plus a Headspace account for mindfulness and meditation through our physical health vendor, Wellhub+
**Perks & extras: $150 monthly food stipend, $150 monthly reimbursement for cell phone and internet, pet insurance allowance, full home office setup, free access to UrbanSitter with $625 in quarterly company-paid credits, ActiveHero, and One MedicalReady to apply your protection engineering expertise at meaningful scale? Apply now and help design resilient microgrid systems that support critical infrastructure while building a career with lasting impact.
We may use artificial intelligence (AI) tools to support parts of the hiring process, such as reviewing applications, analyzing resumes, or assessing responses. These tools assist our recruitment team but do not replace human judgment. Final hiring decisions are ultimately made by humans. If you would like more information about how your data is processed, please contact us.************************
About Intersect
Intersect is a pivotal component of the Australian research landscape. We help researchers accelerate their impact through innovative technologies and expert advice, working closely with our members and the wider research community.
We worry about the things researchers shouldn’t have to - transferring focus to reducing the time from hypothesis to tested results.
Intersect delivers expert advice, compute and analysis platforms, data storage, custom engineering, consultation and training programs to thousands of researchers every year.