Research Engineer – Connectivity & Smart Devices

Description Join us, be part of more. We're so much more than an energy company. We're a family of brands revolutionising how we power the planet. We're energisers. One team of 21,000 colleagues that's energising a greener, fairer future by creating an energy system that doesn't rely on fossil fuels, whilst living our powerful commitment to igniting positive change in our communities.

Here, you can find more purpose, more passion, and more potential. That's why working here is MoreThanACareer. We do energy differently - we do it all. We make it, store it, move it, sell it, and mend it. Want to help the world move towards Net Zero and shape the future of energy from within the UK's leading energy providers?

Energised Futures is Centrica's in-house science, research and innovation incubator, established to systematically explore the possible and catalyse Centrica's purpose of energising a greener, fairer future. To do this, we've built a dynamic and diverse team of researchers to perform cutting edge innovation across its core themes of flexibility, automation, connectivity, markets, engagement, and access, and pairing this with a strong support team to publish and promote research activities, engage with other research institutions and energy innovators, and grow our portfolio of activities.

Based in Antwerp and London since 2024, we continue to grow and evolve, giving newcomers to the team the chance to play a pivotal role in shaping the team and its processes, as it in turn shapes the roadmap for the wider organisation and industry.

Location:

UK Flexible with travel as required to key hubs in Reading and Leicester The Job We are looking for a curious and hands-on Research Engineer - Connectivity & Smart Devices to investigate how connected devices, communication protocols and interoperability standards can support the energy transition. You will research, evaluate and prototype connectivity solutions for smart energy devices, including electric vehicle chargers, heat pumps, batteries, smart meters, home energy systems, sensors and edge gateways.

You will work with researchers, architects, software engineers, technicians and external partners to turn emerging technologies into practical experiments, demonstrators and clear technical recommendations. What You'll Be Doing Research and Evaluation:
Research emerging connectivity technologies, communication protocols and interoperability standards Design and undertake technical experiments to evaluate performance, reliability, scalability, security and suitability for energy applications Translate experimental findings into clear recommendations for technical and non-technical stakeholders Prototyping:
Build proof-of-concept systems using Raspberry Pi, embedded Linux, microcontrollers, edge gateways and smart energy devices Develop software for device communication, protocol integration, device simulation, data acquisition and automated testing Connect physical devices to edge and cloud platforms to demonstrate end-to-end energy use cases Connectivity and Interoperability:
Investigate how heterogeneous devices and platforms can communicate securely and consistently Evaluate IoT and energy protocols such as MQTT, CoAP, Modbus, Matter, Thread, OCPP, OpenADR, EEBUS, DLMS/COSEM and IEC 61850 Contribute to reference architectures, interface definitions, test approaches and reusable research assets Collaboration and Communication:
Work with multidisciplinary teams across Energised Futures and Centrica Collaborate with universities, technology companies, research organisations and standards communities Produce technical reports, research papers, presentations and demonstrator documentation Contribute to publications, conferences and industry engagement where appropriate What We're Looking For A curious and practical research engineer with strong foundations in networking, programming and connected devices, and a genuine interest in applying these capabilities to the energy transition Key

Skills and Experience:

Good knowledge of computer networking and Internet protocols Programming experience in any of Python, Rust, C/C++ or another relevant systems or embedded language Hands-on experience with Raspberry Pi, embedded Linux, microcontrollers or similar platforms Knowledge of device communication protocols and integration patterns Ability to troubleshoot hardware, software and connectivity problems Understanding of connected-device cybersecurity Experience conducting structured…