Director of Engineering & Technology Operations

Position Description

Seattle City Light, a department of the City of Seattle, is one of the nation's largest municipally owned utilities in terms of the number of customers served. Over the years we have worked very hard to keep Seattle's electricity affordable, reliable, and environmentally sound. Today, City Light is a recognized national leader in energy efficiency and environmental stewardship.

The Director of Engineering & Technology Operations (ETO) provides strategic and operational engineering leadership for the Utility. This role is responsible for providing leadership for Management within, but not limited to, the following teams in our Engineering staff:

• Distribution Systems
• Electrical Service Engineers
• Engineering Standards
• Hydro Generation Electrical, Mechanical, Structural, and Civil teams
• Joint Use/Telecom
• Network
• Substation
• Streetlight
• Technical Resources
• Transmission

This position has 10 direct reports and leads a total of around 240 staff. This position supports and helps ensure security, availability and reliability of our electrical infrastructure and systems while responding to a rapidly changing environment. The Director of ETO understands the broad landscape of engineering services and trends and their application to the utility's mission. This position will lead the philosophy around the priority of certain maintenance projects, be a strong voice in the utility's future capital program, will build an increase in engineering resources through hiring and other practices, and will help cultivate and mentor the next generation of leaders.

This position reports to the Engineering and Project Delivery Officer.

City Light's Engineering and Technology Operations (ETO) Division leads the utility's efforts in engineering support for electric infrastructure and operations. The Division supports design and engineering efforts related to equipment maintenance/replacement and to utility infrastructure, the development and administration of engineering strategy, policy and governance, and engineering support related to project management surrounding utility assets and maintenance.

• Supports Seattle City Light as a public utility that has a strong connection to the residents and businesses of our city, and those of our Franchise Cities. In addition to our internal customers such as Generation, Operations, and Customer Care, the successful candidate must provide strong customer support and public outreach, either directly or in support of engineering teams.
• Increased electrification efforts in response to market conditions has prompted the utility to expand its infrastructure. This position will lead changes to work processes related to these strategic efforts and support the engineering teams on these goals.
• Consults with senior management, peer groups and staff to develop and implement engineering solutions for complex business problems and requirements and reports out on quality of internal engineering deliverables.
• Provides leadership and accountability for the safety culture of engineering teams.
• Provides support within the utility for emerging or emergency engineering work related to critical infrastructure across the utility, shifting teams to address priorities, as needed.
• Provides strategic engineering input to business and technical teams to ensure project objectives and appropriate resources are anticipated, allocated and optimized to meet scheduled requirements.
• Oversees long‑term staffing plans and assists with succession planning to ensure adequate training and staff development.
• Provides the City Light Executive Team with engineering workplans, policy and standards modifications, and updates them accordingly.
• Works closely with other business units and divisional leaders to determine engineering solutions to meet business requirements, plan budgets and resource requirements. Matches and prioritizes available resources to specific business requirements and facilitates discussions and decisions on discrepancies.
• Builds, promotes, and oversees strategic relationships between engineering staff and other internal divisions and units promoting trust…