(Senior) Controls Engineer (m/f/d) — PLC Programming & Energy System Integration

Become part of our team! Our energy systems are only as good as the logic that runs them. We are looking for a (senior) controls engineer who programs the controllers that make PV, batteries, gensets and the grid work as one system, in the hardware we develop ourselves and on our projects across Africa and Europe. Crucially, we are looking for someone who understands the power engineering behind the code, not just the code.

Location: Pfullendorf, Germany (hybrid possible, with occasional international travel)

Start date: As soon as possible · Type of employment: Full-time

About Off-Grid Europe

We design, source, finance, and build off-grid and grid-tied energy systems; and we engineer and manufacture our own hardware in Germany: the Ohms Box integrated BESS, the Much Cooler off-grid cold-storage hall, and the IoTEM monitoring stack.

Since 2010 we have commissioned 300+ projects across Africa and Europe, from rural electrification to industrial and commercial applications.

This is not a “corporate comfort zone.” We are looking for someone driven and independent in a fast-growing, execution-driven organisation, an engineer who sets the standard rather than inherits one.

The Role

You will become the expert on the control layer across both halves of our business. In R&D that means the Ohms Box: developing and improving the control platform of our own product. On the project side it means PV and BESS plants in Africa and Europe, where you adapt that platform to each site; different gensets, different inverters, different grid, different load profile.

The two feed each other: what you learn on a weak grid in Zambia becomes a feature in the next Ohms Box revision, and the platform you build in Pfullendorf is what makes the next project quick to deliver.

PLC programming and control logic

• Programming and configuring our BESS, genset and mains controllers into one coherent energy management system
• Writing the operating logic: start/stop strategies, load sharing and synchronisation, mains-parallel and island operation, transitions between them, black start, peak shaving, genset optimisation and SOC management
• Protection interlocks, alarm and event handling, failure modes and safe states
• Parameter sets, configuration versioning and a repeatable build
• Project-specific control concepts for hybrid power plants: translating a customer’s load profile and grid conditions into an operating strategy, and integrating whichever gensets, inverters and meters the project brings with it

System integration

• Communication between controllers, PCS, PV inverters, meters and gateways: Modbus RTU/TCP, CAN, among others
• Integration with our IoTEM monitoring hardware and software: register maps, data model, telemetry, remote diagnostics and firmware/configuration updates in the field
• Functional design specifications and sequence-of-operations documentation that our electrical engineers, our production team and our customers can all work from

Testing, commissioning and the installed fleet

• Building and using the test bench: simulating genset, grid and load scenarios before hardware ever leaves Pfullendorf
• FAT and SAT procedures, commissioning of the energy management system and remote fault analysis, together with our international team

Electronics and hardware interface

A secondary area, and we do not expect all of it on day one.

• Specifying and wiring I/O: 24 V DC control circuits, digital and analogue inputs, CT and VT inputs, relays, signal conditioning
• Working with our electronics hardware at board level: reading schematics, debugging with multimeter and scope, and feeding requirements back into the design
• Practical EMC and wiring discipline inside a container full of switching power electronics

What you bring to the table

• Qualification & experience: Relevant degree in electrical or mechatronics engineering, automation or control and at least 5 years of experience in programming PLCs or genset/BESS controllers in energy/power applications
• Controllers: Experience with ComAp is ideal. Equivalent platforms count. We will train you on ComAp if the power engineering is there
• Power systems understanding: This matters more to us than the toolchain. You know how gensets synchronise and share load, how a PCS behaves in grid-forming and grid-following mode, what a weak grid does to your assumptions, and why an SOC setpoint is an engineering decision rather than a number
• Startup & entrepreneurial mindset: Think and act like a co-builder, not a corporate employee. Comfortable with incomplete structures, fast decisions and personal responsibility; building processes while executing, not waiting for perfection
• Languages: Business fluent English is a must. German is an advantage, French opens direct work with our West African teams
• Mobility: Willingness to occasionally travel to sites in Africa and Europe

We would rather hire an engineer with 80 % of the requirements and the judgement to say “I don’t know yet, here is how I’ll find out” than someone who ticks every box on paper.

What we offer you

• Become the expert of the control layer of our flagship product, with high autonomy and short decision paths
• R&D that ships: what you write this quarter is in a container on a customer site the next
• Both worlds in one job: a product you develop over generations, and PV and BESS projects across Africa and Europe that put your logic to work on real sites
• Hardware you can touch: engineering, R&D and manufacturing all at our site in Germany, with a test bench a short walk from your desk
• Permanent contract, 30 days annual leave, flexible hours, hybrid working, and a training budget for standards, tools and certifications
• Your logic ends up powering villages, hospitals or cold rooms that had a diesel bill or no power before you arrived

Apply Now!

Send your CV to recruitment@offgrideurope.com. Keep the cover letter short. But do include a paragraph about a control system you built: what the system had to do, how you structured the logic, and what surprised you once it ran on real hardware.

Contact: Justus Hoffstaedt, CTO

We hire on capability and welcome applications regardless of gender, origin, age, religion, disability or sexual identity. Application data is processed under GDPR and deleted six months after the process closes.