Performance Engineer Monitoring & Diagnostics 5

At NAES, you’ll find engaging and challenging career opportunities in the power generation, renewable energy and industrial construction industry. At every level of the company, we share a common goal: To instill confidence in our clients through our steadfast commitment to safety, integrity and quality of work.

As the largest independent operator of power facilities in the industry, we’ve come to be viewed as an employer of choice. We strive to attract and retain employees by offering competitive compensation, a comprehensive benefits package (including retirement) and promotional opportunities.

Summary

The Performance Engineer supports NAES Remote Operations and Monitoring & Diagnostics (M&D) services from the Remote Operating Center. Continuously monitor plant and equipment performance, identify abnormal operating conditions and emerging equipment issues, perform diagnostic analysis, and work with plant teams to drive issues through resolution. Combine power plant operations knowledge, equipment diagnostics, data analysis, and performance engineering. Use plant historian data, monitoring and diagnostic applications, equipment models, alarm systems, and engineering tools to identify equipment degradation, operational abnormalities, and opportunities to improve reliability, availability, and plant performance. Support the continued development and standardization of NAES M&D capabilities as additional facilities are onboarded to the Remote Operating Center.

Primary Duties

Monitoring & Diagnostics

• Continuously monitor plant and major equipment health using plant historian data, Predict-It, APR/Pathway models, diagnostic tools, alarms, and other M&D applications.
• Review and investigate alerts, anomalies, equipment performance deviations, and abnormal operating conditions.
• Perform first-level diagnostic analysis to determine likely causes, operational significance, and recommended next steps.
• Manage M&D cases from initial identification through investigation, plant notification, escalation, and closure.
• Identify developing equipment problems before they result in forced outages, derates, or significant equipment damage.
• Provide equipment diagnostic advisories and actionable recommendations to plant operations and maintenance teams.
• Review equipment behavior during startup, shutdown, trips, and other significant operating events.

Plant Performance & Reliability

• Monitor unit and equipment performance and identify degradation or changes from expected operating performance.
• Analyze operational and equipment data to support troubleshooting and root-cause investigations.
• Support thermal performance monitoring and analysis, including identification of performance losses and opportunities for improvement.
• Assist with unit trip root-cause analysis and restart support.
• Identify recurring equipment issues and reliability trends across supported facilities.
• Develop corrective and preventive maintenance recommendations based on M&D findings.
• Support outage planning by identifying equipment concerns, inspection opportunities, and recommended outage work scope.

Remote Operating Center Support

• Serve as an engineering resource to Remote Operations personnel when abnormal plant or equipment conditions are identified.
• Provide technical guidance to ROC operators during equipment alarms, abnormal conditions, startups, shutdowns, and other operating events.
• Support alarm notification and escalation processes and ensure significant findings are communicated to the appropriate plant and NAES personnel.
• Coordinate with plant Operations, Maintenance, Engineering, and management teams to resolve identified issues.
• Maintain clear documentation of findings, recommendations, plant responses, and case resolution.

Reporting & Customer Support

• Prepare regular M&D reports summarizing open issues, new findings, equipment concerns, recommendations, and resolved cases.
• Participate in recurring M&D review meetings with plant teams and customers.
• Develop instrumentation-out-of-service reports and identify instrumentation issues affecting monitoring or diagnostic capabilities.
• Prepare outage equipment worklist recommendations based on identified equipment conditions.
• Support customer discussions regarding equipment health, performance, and M&D findings.

M&D System Development & Plant Onboarding

• Support onboarding new plants into NAES Monitoring & Diagnostics services.
• Review historian data availability, tag quality, instrumentation, and equipment configuration.
• Assist with development and validation of equipment models and monitoring logic.
• Support deployment and tuning of APR, Pathway, anomaly detection, and equipment diagnostic models.
• Identify gaps in instrumentation or data quality that limit diagnostic effectiveness.
• Help develop standardized M&D procedures, workflows, alarm thresholds, escalation criteria, reports, and case-management practices.

Working Relationships: Reports to the Technical Program Director and works closely with:

• ROC/PMOC Operators and Shift Leads
• ROC Manager
• Reliability and Performance Engineering teams
• Plant Operations personnel at site locations
• Digital platform partners (e.g., Gecko, ECG)
• IT and SCADA support teams
• Supports onboarding and coordination with new client sites and internal NAES stakeholders.

Job Qualifications:

• Education: Bachelor’s degree in engineering (mechanical, electrical, or related field) from an accredited college or university recognized by the United States Department of Education or equivalent.

• Years of Experience:
  • 10 years of experience in power plant operations, performance engineering, controls, or related field.
  • Working knowledge of major power plant equipment and systems, including gas turbines, steam turbines, HRSGs, generators, pumps, compressors, heat exchangers, cooling systems, and balance-of-plant equipment.
  • Experience with data integration and system onboarding

• Preferred Experience: Experience with plant historians and analytical platforms such as AVEVA PI/OSIsoft PI, Predict-It, APR, Pathway, or similar monitoring and diagnostic applications.

• Software/Equipment Knowledge:
  • SCADA systems and plant control systems
  • Historian systems and data analytics tools
  • CMMS platforms
  • Performance modeling tools
  • Digital platforms

• Other Considerations:
  • Strong understanding of power plant operations and equipment.
  • Able to interpret plant data and identify performance issues.
  • Strong communication and training skills
  • Able to work in a fast-paced, evolving digital operations environment
  • Willing to travel periodically to support site onboarding and ROC development.

Physical Requirements and Working Conditions

• Primarily office-based role within a control room / operations center environment
• Occasional travel to plant sites and NAES offices
• Extended periods of sitting, computer use, and monitoring multiple screens.

NAES Safe

Safety is a core value of NAES and as a condition of employment, all employees are expected to be mentally alert and work safely at all times. Additionally, employees are required to adhere to all safety warnings and posted safety signs whenever on company property. Furthermore, employees must follow all NAES safety rules and procedures. Effectiveness in carrying out this responsibility is part of the evaluation of each employee’s performance.

NAES is committed to a diverse and inclusive workplace. It is the practice of NAES to seek employees of the highest quality and to select individuals on the basis of merit and competence, without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, disability, military status or affiliation protected under USERRA, or any other basis of discrimination prohibited by applicable local, state and federal law.