Current positions in the electrical industry

This is an incredible opportunity to help bring a proven global smart metering and AMI platform into the United States and play a meaningful role in determining what those products become for the US utility market.

My client is a highly respected European manufacturer of smart electricity meters, AMI systems and IoT enabled energy solutions. For more than 30 years, they have invested heavily in engineering, research, manufacturing and the technologies behind modern electricity metering. Their products are established internationally, their technology is proven, and their reputation has been built over decades of real utility deployments. Now they are making a significant commitment to the United States.

As part of that expansion, they are establishing a US subsidiary and looking for an experienced Senior Product Manager who understands smart meters, understands AMI and, just as importantly, understands how American utilities evaluate, specify, test, purchase and deploy these technologies.

This is not a generic software product management position. It is not a role for someone who has worked around the utility industry but never really gotten into the technology. You need to know the product.

Smart electric meters. Residential, commercial, and industrial applications. Metering functionality. Accuracy. Firmware. Communications. Utility integration. ANSI C12 standards. Certification. Testing. The details matter here because you will be one of the people responsible for translating what the US market requires into products that utilities will trust and deploy.

You will also need to understand the larger AMI market. Head end systems, meter data management, RF mesh, PLC, cellular communications, LTE M, data analytics, and utility system integration are all part of the conversation. The meter cannot be viewed as an isolated piece of hardware. It is part of a much larger system, and successful candidates will understand how those pieces work together.

You will spend time with utilities, engineers, procurement organizations, consultants, and industry partners understanding what they need, where existing solutions fall short and what will matter in the next generation of AMI deployments. Then you will take that knowledge back to global engineering, R&D, quality, and manufacturing teams and turn it into clear product requirements and priorities.

You will own the US product roadmap across smart meter hardware and complementary AMI solutions. You will help determine product positioning, establish priorities and develop the requirements that guide localization for the American market. You will be deeply involved with ANSI C12 requirements as well as relevant IEEE, NIST, state utility and interoperability standards. You will support certification, third party testing and utility qualification and validation programs.

Getting the product ready is only part of the job. You will also help the commercial organization win. That means working directly with sales on technical customer discussions, product demonstrations, solution reviews, RFPs and RFQs. You will develop the technical content and product messaging that allows a sales organization to explain not simply what the product does, but why it matters to a utility. You will train internal teams and help create the specifications, white papers, proposal content and technical materials needed to compete credibly in the US market.

Once products are deployed, you stay involved. You will listen to field feedback, monitor product performance, understand quality issues and identify competitive gaps. You will work with engineering on firmware improvements and product enhancements while helping the organization determine which requests represent isolated customer preferences and which ones signal something larger happening in the market.

Good product management is not about collecting the longest possible list of features. It is about understanding customers well enough to know what deserves to be built, understanding engineering well enough to know what can be built, and understanding the business well enough to know what should be built.

We are looking for someone who has already lived in this world. You should have proven expertise in product management experience involving smart electric meters, AMI solutions or closely related smart grid technologies. A strong technical foundation is important. More importantly, you should be able to sit down with a utility metering engineer and have a real conversation.

You understand single phase and three phase metering. You know measurement functions, accuracy classes, communications, firmware and I/O. You understand HES and MDMS environments and the differences between PLC, RF and cellular communications. You know enough about utility architecture to understand what happens upstream and downstream from the meter.

Experience with US utility metering programs is particularly valuable. So is direct experience supporting product qualification, field trials, AMI deployments, or utility certification programs.

This position will require someone who can work across cultures and time zones without losing momentum. The global engineering organization has considerable technical capability. Your job is to make sure that capability is pointed at the right problems for the US market.

You will need to be organized, technically curious and comfortable making decisions. You should be able to write a detailed product requirement and then walk into a customer meeting and explain the same idea without hiding behind technical jargon. You should listen well. Ask good questions. Push when something does not make sense. And know when the customer has just told you something important.

There is significant visibility attached to this role because the US organization is being built now. You are not joining a mature American product organization with layers of people above and below you. You will have the opportunity to influence how products are localized, how the portfolio develops and ultimately how the business establishes itself in one of the world’s largest smart metering markets.

The position is US based with flexibility on location for the right person. Travel will be required for utility meetings, industry events, product testing, and other customer facing activities. Candidates must have permanent authorization to work in the United States without sponsorship.

The compensation package will include a competitive base salary, performance incentives and a comprehensive US benefits program including medical, dental and vision coverage, 401(k) with company match, paid time off, holidays and professional development support.

There are very few product management opportunities where you can take 30 years of engineering, proven technology and an established international product portfolio and help determine how it enters an entirely new market.

For the right smart metering professional, that is what makes this opportunity interesting.