Controls Engineer, Power Generation and Microgird

About the Team

OpenAI, in close collaboration with our capital and delivery partners, is building the infrastructure required to support frontier AI systems. The Data Center Engineering team defines repeatable technical standards and carries them through design, construction, commissioning, and operational readiness. The team works across data center facilities, power generation, compute infrastructure, construction, procurement, and operations to deliver reliable capacity at unprecedented scale and speed.

About the Role

We are seeking a Controls Engineer to design, program, integrate and commission on-site power generation and microgrid control systems serving large AI data center campuses. You will own control architecture and functional requirements across generation packages, balance-of-plant systems, electrical protection, microgrid controls, and data center monitoring. You will work from concept through factory testing, site commissioning, performance validation, and operational improvement.

This role requires hands-on experience with industrial control systems, including PLC and DCS programming, plant-level control sequences, equipment integration, simulation, testing and commissioning. The engineers will work with equipment vendors, system integrators and the broader data center team to make sure the complete power system operates safely and reliably across normal and failure conditions.

Travel: 50%

Key Responsibilities

• Power Generation and Microgrid Controls

  • Design, program and commission plant power controllers (PPCs) and microgrid control systems for gas turbine and reciprocating engine power plants.

  • Develop control sequences for grid-connected, islanded and transition modes, including startup, shutdown, synchronization, load sharing, import/export control, load shedding, black start, restoration and resynchronization.

  • Coordinate active power, reactive power, voltage and frequency controls across generators, energy storage, MV UPS and other distributed energy resources.

  • Define how the plant responds to generator trips, loss of utility power, large load changes, equipment failures and loss of communication.

  • Work with OEMs to define the boundaries between turbine or engine controls, generator controls, the PPC, protection systems and data center controls.

• Electrical systems and utility interconnection

  • Review utility and transmission-provider interconnection requirements and translate them into plant control, protection, metering, communications and testing requirements.

  • Work with utility and equipment vendors to define controls and interfaces at the point of interconnection, including power limits, voltage and frequency response, reactive, power factor, telemetry and dispatch.

  • Review interconnection studies, operating procedures and test requirements, and track the actions needed to demonstrate compliance.

  • Work with Engineer-Of-Record (EOR) to review load-flow, short-circuit, stability, step-load and electromagnetic transient (EMT) studies. Use the results to develop control settings, sequences and test cases.

• Control Architecture:

  • Develop and review functional design specifications (FDS), sequences of operation, network architecture diagrams, I/O lists and alarm philosophies.

  • Review P&IDs and instrumentation for generation-plant systems, including fuel gas, cooling, lubrication and other balance-of-plant equipment.

  • Define equipment interfaces, control modes, permissives, interlocks and failure responses between OEM packages and the plant control system.

• Real-Time Simulation and hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) testing:

  • Develop and execute real-time simulation and hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) tests for generation and microgrid control systems using RTDS and RSCAD.

  • Work with internal engineering teams and equipment vendors to build and validate representative models of the electrical system, from the generation plant and utility interconnection through the data center distribution system to representative GPU rack loads.

  • Develop and execute test cases for normal operation, mode changes, load steps, trips, faults, and system failures.

  • Compare simulation and HIL results with equipment data, factory test results and field performance. Document model assumptions and limitations.

• Testing, commissioning and delivery

  • Develop and review FAT, SAT and integrated systems test plans for plant and microgrid controls.

  • Participate in factory testing, site testing, energization support, tuning and commissioning of generation and data center power systems.

  • Troubleshoot controls and system-integration issues using controller data, alarms, event records, trends and test results.

  • Work with OEMs, EPCs, utilities and system integrators to resolve interface gaps and track issues through closure.

  • Coordinate the handover of final project deliverables, including software, configurations, backups, test records, operating instructions and training, to the data center operations team.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of hands-on experience designing, programming, integrating and commissioning industrial controls for power generation, industrial plants, utilities, or mission-critical infrastructure.

• Strong hands-on experience with PLC, DCS, SCADA, historian, industrial-networking, and control-system integration.

• Experience with plant power control, generator controls, synchronization, load sharing, islanding and load-shedding schemes.

• Experience integrating controls with power generation equipment, protective relays, SCADA/EPMS and other plant systems.

• Experience developing functional specifications, sequences, I/O, alarms, graphics, and factory or site test procedures.

• Ability to troubleshoot across software, instrumentation, electrical, mechanical, communications, and operating-process boundaries.

• Understanding of industrial cybersecurity, redundancy, failover, and change-control practices.

• Bachelor's degree in controls, electrical, mechanical, chemical engineering, computer engineering, or a related field.

Preferred Skills

• Experience with major turbine or reciprocating-engine control platforms and microgrid controllers.

• Experience with data center power systems and rapidly changing AI or GPU loads.

• Experience integrating gas generation with BESS, MV UPS and grid-forming or grid-following inverters.

• Experience with EMT studies and model validation for weak-grid or islanded power systems.

• Experience developing automated simulation tests and regression test libraries.

• Experience with network redundancy, industrial protocols, OT cybersecurity and remote support for critical facilities.

• Experience transitioning from temporary generation to permanent power systems.

• Experience with IEC 61850 (MMS, GOOSE, SV), Modbus, OPC UA, DNP3, EtherNet/IP, or comparable industrial protocols.

• Professional Engineer license, functional-safety training, or industrial-cybersecurity certification.

About OpenAI

OpenAI is an AI research and deployment company dedicated to ensuring that general-purpose artificial intelligence benefits all of humanity. We push the boundaries of the capabilities of AI systems and seek to safely deploy them to the world through our products. AI is an extremely powerful tool that must be created with safety and human needs at its core, and to achieve our mission, we must encompass and value the many different perspectives, voices, and experiences that form the full spectrum of humanity. 

We are an equal opportunity employer, and we do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, age, veteran status, disability, genetic information, or other applicable legally protected characteristic.

For additional information, please see OpenAI’s Affirmative Action and Equal Employment Opportunity Policy Statement.

Background checks for applicants will be administered in accordance with applicable law, and qualified applicants with arrest or conviction records will be considered for employment consistent with those laws, including the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance for Employers, and the California Fair Chance Act, for US-based candidates. For unincorporated Los Angeles County workers: we reasonably believe that criminal history may have a direct, adverse and negative relationship with the following job duties, potentially resulting in the withdrawal of a conditional offer of employment: protect computer hardware entrusted to you from theft, loss or damage; return all computer hardware in your possession (including the data contained therein) upon termination of employment or end of assignment; and maintain the confidentiality of proprietary, confidential, and non-public information. In addition, job duties require access to secure and protected information technology systems and related data security obligations.

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