Solar Engineering Lead - Preliminary Design

Moss & Associates is a national construction firm that provides innovative solutions for various sectors, including solar energy. As a Solar Engineering Lead - Preliminary Design, you will lead the technical direction for utility-scale solar and BESS projects, ensuring quality and integrity in design deliverables while mentoring fellow engineers.

Responsibilities:

• Develop and review preliminary PV layouts prepared by Project Engineers, providing clear, actionable feedback to ensure technical accuracy and completeness
• Ensure all preliminary designs align with the Scope of Work, owner requirements, and internal standards, proactively identifying deviations, risks, and missing inputs
• Align DC collection strategies and key design decisions with Engineering Services electrical guidance and applicable codes and standards
• Integrate lessons learned into preliminary design practices to drive continuous improvement and elevate overall design quality
• Own the timely delivery of complete preliminary design packages, ensuring clean, well-documented handoffs to downstream teams with clearly stated assumptions and decisions
• Accurately estimate effort and timelines for preliminary design tasks, prioritizing review cycles to support Project Engineer productivity and meet RFP and pipeline deadlines
• Coordinate cross-functionally to resolve interface conflicts, close open technical items, and maintain alignment across disciplines
• Maintain an organized version control and change tracking, clearly identifying the current approved design set
• Make cost-conscious design decisions that reduce commercial risk and support efficient field execution
• Minimize rework and downstream change orders through early risk identification, scope clarity, and resolution of ambiguities before handoff
• Escalate potential safety risks in designs or deliverables and adhere to all Moss and Engineering Services safety protocols
• Mentor and coach team members on preliminary design standards, workflows, and quality expectations, providing timely and constructive feedback
• Communicate design decisions, trade-offs, and technical rationale clearly to foster strong cross-disciplinary collaboration
• Identify resourcing or capability gaps early and propose practical solutions, supporting onboarding and skill development in preliminary design processes
• Contribute to the refinement of workflows, checklists, and templates to improve efficiency, consistency, and overall handoff quality

Requirements:

• Bachelor's degree in engineering, technical field, or related discipline - required
• 3+ years of project engineering and preliminary design engineering experience in the Utility-Scale Solar industry - required
• Proficient knowledge of electrical systems, layouts, civil considerations, and AC and DC collection strategies; emphasizes scoping assumptions and early constraints
• Understands sequencing and hand-offs from estimating preliminary design and downstream partners
• Recognizes risks early and escalates scope/alignment issues for resolution
• General budget awareness understands how Preliminary Design scope, materials, and assumptions affect cost and field execution
• Clearly conveys recommendations, risks, and design changes; makes Preliminary Design decisions visible and traceable
• Articulates rationale in reviews; ensures key details carry into downstream packages
• Proficiency in Excel and design/drafting tools for site constraints and layout trade-offs
• Strong analysis and problem-solving for option evaluation and early conflict resolution
• Organizes technical data for efficient review of assumptions and decisions
• Effective written/verbal communication across disciplines and partners
• Manages time to balance tasks and review cycles against RFP/pipeline timelines
• Reliable task/project owner; reviews/approves PE outputs with minimal oversight
• Demonstrate an execution mindset; proactively identify opportunities to improve workflows and deliverables
• Anticipates constructability issues; provides input to prevent downstream risks
• Critical thinking skills are needed to escalate when the scope, schedule, or cost is impacted
• Strong attention to detail with forward-looking solutions for clean handoffs
• Ability to collaborate across disciplines to align electrical with civil/mechanical constraints
• Willingness to travel as needed to support project execution, up to 20-25% travel - if remote
• Utility-scale Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) experience