Solar Development Engineer Jobs in Illinois (NOW HIRING)

RWE Americas, LLC
To start as soon as possible, full time, permanent
Functional area: Engineering
Remuneration: Exempt

The Principal Engineer, Solar PV Energy Production, is a senior individual-contributor role responsible for elevating the technical quality and long-term defensibility of energy production work across the project lifecycle. Reporting to the VP of Solar PV Systems, this role owns the methodological backbone of solar modeling practices such as early-stage production modeling best-practices, post-COD reconciliation with FID assumptions, production uncertainty modeling, proactive coordination for execution phase and the integration of emerging analytical capabilities into engineering workflows.

This person sets the standard for how the company models, validates, and continuously improves energy yield estimates across utility-scale solar assets, and is expected to work with meaningful autonomy on problems that span development, construction, and operations.

 Role Responsibilities:  

• Own and evolve the company's production modeling methodology for utility-scale solar, incorporating advances in satellite irradiance datasets, loss factor characterization, and inter-annual variability treatment
• Establish and maintain a living set of internal best-practice standards for PVSyst (or equivalent tool) configuration - covering horizon shading, bifacial gain, soiling profiles, and DC/AC loss assumptions - ensuring consistent, auditable, and defensible outputs across the portfolio
• Develop internally consistent uncertainty frameworks that account for resource variability, model uncertainty, and equipment performance risk in a way that satisfies both lender due diligence requirements and internal investment decision-making
• Serve as the primary internal technical resource for independent engineer (IE) engagement during project financing and tax equity funding, supporting responses to technical findings and defending design assumptions with analytical rigor
• Lead capacity testing oversight - defining test protocols, reviewing pre-test models, and reconciling test results against expected performance to support lender and tax equity requirements
• Support MET station campaign design and quality assurance during construction, ensuring that sensor placement, instrument selection, and data validation practices will support bankable long-term performance assessment
• Proactively assess the energy production impact of design changes that arise mid-construction - equipment substitutions, layout modifications, or scope changes - and develop analytical frameworks to quantify and mitigate change-order risk before it materializes
• Build and maintain physics-based simulation models for operating assets that go beyond P50/P90 benchmarking - enabling energy potential estimation under variable conditions, loss attribution, and degradation tracking grounded in first-principles performance modeling
• Collaborate with asset management and O&M teams to translate operational data into modeling feedback loops, improving pre-COD assumptions and creating a more accurate picture of realized versus predicted performance across the fleet
• Act as the subject-matter expert for the integration of AI and machine learning capabilities into the solar engineering workflow -defining where these methods create genuine accuracy improvements in layout development, energy modeling and operational diagnostics
• Collaborate with technology and data teams to ensure that AI-driven outputs are grounded in physical models and do not introduce opaque or unvalidatable assumptions into financeable deliverables
• Provide expert guidance and review for senior engineers and design leads on design development, elevating the overall quality of modeling work without carrying direct people management responsibility
• Monitor developments in PV simulation research, industry benchmarking (e.g., PVPS Task 13), and regulatory shifts that affect performance modeling standards, and translate relevant findings into actionable updates to internal practice

 Job Requirements and Experiences: 

• A Bachelor's or Master's degree in Electrical Engineering, Physics, or a closely related engineering discipline is required
• A minimum of 12 years of progressively senior experience in solar PV engineering, with a material portion focused on utility-scale (100 MW+) projects in the US market is required
• Deep, hands-on expertise in PVSyst, including configuration of bifacial models, near shading scenes, horizon profiles, and inter-annual variability treatment; working familiarity with alternative or complementary platforms (e.g., SAM, Solargis, NSRDB-based workflows)
• Demonstrated experience producing and defending bankable energy yield assessments, including direct engagement with independent engineers during project financing
• Substantive experience with energy uncertainty modeling - whether through internal probabilistic tools or platforms such as Power UQ - and the ability to explain uncertainty outputs to non-technical financial audiences
• Working knowledge of PV system physics - irradiance transposition, temperature coefficients, bifacial gain mechanics, inverter clipping, and DC degradation - sufficient to identify errors in models and outputs that tools do not flag automatically
• Experience in an asset management or operational analytics role that involved reconciling predicted versus actual performance, or developing monitoring-based loss attribution frameworks
• Familiarity with MET station infrastructure design - including pyranometer selection, soiling station placement, and data quality validation - particularly in a construction oversight or owner's engineer context
• Exposure to machine learning or statistical modeling approaches applied to solar performance - irradiance interpolation, soiling estimation, or anomaly detection - and a clear-eyed view of where these methods add value versus introduce risk
• Experience with capacity testing protocols (e.g., ASME PTC 13 or equivalent) and post-construction performance reconciliation
• Participation in industry working groups, IEA PVPS activities, or similar forums where modeling standards are shaped

Applicants must be legally authorized to work in the United States. RWE Americas is unable to sponsor or take over sponsorship of employment visas at this time.  

Pay range: The annual base salary range for this position in Illinois is $194,000 - $206,000. The listed salary range represents our good faith estimate for this position and represents the range for new hire salaries across all U.S locations. Please note that the salary information is a general guideline only. RWE considers factors such as (but not limited to) scope and responsibilities of the position, candidate's education & work experience, training & certifications, and key skills as well as market and business considerations at the time of the offer.
Benefits offered: Medical, Dental, Vision, Life Insurance, Short-Term Disability, Long-Term Disability, 401(k) match, Flexible Spending Accounts, EAP, Education Assistance, Parental Leave, Paid time off, and Holidays. Eligible employees also participate in short-term incentives, in addition to salary.
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All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion, national origin, disability, veteran status, or other legally protected status.
RWE Americas, a subsidiary of RWE, is a US-based energy company that is helping to meet the growing demand for energy across the United States. Backed by RWE's 125-year global legacy of managing diverse power assets, RWE Americas operates approximately 13 GW of power projects across 27 states. With a talented workforce of 2,000 employees, RWE Americas develops, constructs and operates wind, solar and battery storage projects, along with natural gas-powered generation, that safely deliver affordable, reliable electricity to our customers. Committed to responsible development, RWE Americas invests in local and rural communities, creating jobs and partnering with stakeholders to support and strengthen the places where we live and work. Learn more about how RWE Americas is generating impact at americas.rwe.com.

At RWE Americas, we foster a culture defined by our Essential Behaviors - Have Courage, Create Impact and Actively Collaborate. We encourage bold thinking and continuous learning, and we value ownership, resilience and inclusion in everything we do. When you join us, you become part of a team that supports your development, respects your contributions and celebrates shared success. This is a place where you can grow your career and make a meaningful difference.