Principal Product Manager - Distributed Energy Resource Management System Load Management

Requisition ID # 162797 

Job Category: Customer Support / Operations 

Job Level: Manager/Principal

Business Unit: Engineering, Planning & Strategy

Work Type: Hybrid

Job Location: Oakland

Department and Team Overview

In 2022, PG&E articulated its True North Strategy (TNS), a bold, breakthrough vision that charts a course over the next 10 years toward achieving our purpose and climate commitments. The Grid Research Innovation and Development (GRID) department is focused on bringing technologies and solutions that support the implementation of TNS from conception to reality. 

The Grid Edge Innovations team within the GRID department is charting the future of the utility and the energy industry by defining how grid edge technologies will interact with the grid to enable a 24/7/365 clean, resilient, and affordable energy system. The team evaluates, demonstrates and deploys emerging technologies, concepts, and processes that PG&E will need to design and operate the resilient energy system of the future and transform the electric grid from the edges inward.  Toward that end, the team works collaboratively with diverse stakeholders across the enterprise to design, build and test product strategies, roadmaps and implementation plans for innovation. The current focus of the Grid Edge Innovation team is to build and advance products and processes to operationalize Distributed Energy Resources (DERs) and grid edge technologies such as solar PV, battery storage, electric vehicles and microgrids. This team is an important bridge between PG&E’s DER policy and strategy and how PG&E will plan for, interconnect and interact with or operate DERs on a day-to-day basis.

Position Summary

This execution and solution-oriented candidate will lead the strategy and solutions required to scale PG&E’s enterprise Distributed Energy Resource Management System (DERMS).

An initial focus of this role will be to deploy solutions to increase customer enrollment and value of PG&E’s current flagship DERMS-enabled program, FlexConnect, while identifying additional solutions that leverage PG&E’s new DERMS capabilities to meet customers’ needs.

In addition to the execution focus, the DERMG Go-To-Market Product Manager will also support development PG&E’s overall DER strategy working across a number on internal business units to align the DERMS capabilities and roadmap to PG&E’s overall DER Management vision.

A strong applicant will be highly organized and motivated, with a strong track record of success in building consensus and managing many moving parts within matrixed teams. The Product Manager will work closely in collaboration with customers, cross functional stakeholders in various company divisions and with vendor and industry stakeholders to develop and deploy solutions that scale the impact or PG&E’s DERMS implementation.

This position is based out of PG&E’s General Office in downtown Oakland, CA. The team has a hybrid work model primarily working remotely with the expectation of working from Oakland office several days per month minimum. In-person activities will focus on synchronous collaboration, affinity building, ideation, or planning activities. Most day-to-day work (individual and collaborative) will be performed remotely. The role may also require occasional travel to PG&E facilities throughout the service territory.

PG&E is providing the salary range that the company in good faith believes it might pay for this position at the time of the job posting. This compensation range is specific to the locality of the job. The actual salary paid to an individual will be based on multiple factors, including, but not limited to, specific skills, education, licenses or certifications, experience, market value, geographic location, and internal equity. Although we estimate the successful candidate hired into this role will be placed between the entry point and the middle of the range, the decision will be made on a case-by-case basis related to these factors. This job is also eligible to participate in PG&E’s discretionary incentive compensation programs.   

A reasonable salary range is: 

Bay Area Minimum: $140,000       

Bay Area Maximum: $238,000   

Responsibilities:

Lead the scaling of PG&E’s DERMS control sites by ensuring our offerings meet customers needs and are easy to adopt

• Lead the development and deployment of hardware and software solutions that allow PG&E’s DERMS Platform and use cases to scale and provide both grid services and customer benefits
• Act as a liason between the DERMS Execution Team, our customers, and our customer-facing teams, to represent user needs in the design and deployment of programs and solutions that meet our customers needs and our business needs.
• Identify and deploy strategies and solutions that incentive customers to maintain their connection to PG&E’s DERMS system, adding long-term system flexibility
• Engage with the project execution stakeholders (e.g IT, vendors, programs) to leverage PG&E’s Lean Operating System framework of Daily/Weekly/Monthly Operation Reviews (ORs) to drive execution
• Analyze data about our customers to identify data-informed solutions that increase our ability to connect customers with our DERMS systems and continually deliver value over time

Support PG&E’s overall DER technical product strategy and roadmap

• Drive alignment across internal work groups to develop an enterprise DER technology strategy and technology roadmap
• Provide input into the longer term DERMS Product Roadmap by identifying current and future use cases and providing input and feedback on the vision and strategy for DERMS evolution and innovation
• Support development of the DERMS solution architecture for the future ecosystem of DER Management applications and technologies

A strong applicant will be organized and motivated, with a strong track record of success in building consensus and managing many moving parts within matrixed teams.

Qualifications

Minimums:

• Bachelor of Arts or Bachelor of Science in Business, Economics, Marketing, Psychology, or related.
• 10 years of job-related experience

Desired:

• Master’s in Business Administration, Engineering or other Advanced Degree
• Experience directly interacting with business customers to identify needs and adopt new solutions or products
• Experience leading cross cutting initiatives, with a focus on emerging/innovative technologies and creating new process & structure for rapid scale-up
• Strong verbal / written communication and presentation skills 
• 3 years of electric industry related experience (e.g. utility, DER technology company or developer, etc.)
• Knowledge and experience with communications protocols, preferably DER (Distributed Energy Resource) protocols such as IEEE 2030.5, CSIP 2.1, Open ADR, Aggregator APIs etc.
• Demonstrated experience in project, product, or program management in the context of utility operations, IT systems or DER product deployment
• Familiarity with California utility regulations, regulatory processes and policy context

Desired Characteristics

• Bias toward action
• Ability to work in a matrixed environment and a positive execution-oriented mentality
• Converts ambiguity into structure, creating well-oiled machines of process from scrappy first iterations
• Rigorously defines and enforces prioritization of feature development, defeating scope creep and delivering the most impactful product improvements
• Flexibility in project communication, execution and problem approach when coordinating across various stakeholders.
• Communicates effectively highly complex ideas with credibility, confidence, and clarity to diverse audiences using a variety of media
• Handles multiple projects and stakeholders and pushes for pace with self-directed drive

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