Principal Electrical Engineer (Mission Critical / Data Centers)

About Inovi: Born in Silicon Valley, we’re a boutique AI infrastructure company building sustainable, next-generation digital infrastructure, end to end. From design through operation, our work is engineered for the performance, scale, and efficiency that advanced AI and computing demand, while strengthening the communities around us.

Location: Remote with up to 50% travel

Type: Full-time, exempt

Reports to: Head of Engineering

Direct reports: Team of engineers, to be built

Position Summary

This is a practice-building hire, not a seat on an existing bench. Inovi is standing up a mission-critical electrical practice in Richmond, and we're hiring the person who will own it — technically, commercially, and legally. You will be the electrical engineer of record on our data center work, you will set the standards the rest of the discipline designs to, and you will hire and build the team beneath you. If you've been the person doing this work inside a larger firm without the title, the authority, or the upside, that's the gap we're offering to close.

Virginia is the most competitive data center market in the world right now, and we intend to compete in it seriously — that starts with the seal. Our work won't stop at the state line; expect projects across the Mid-Atlantic and into other major data center markets. Virginia licensure is required on day one, and we fund and support additional state licensure as our project geography grows.

Essential Job Function and Key Responsibilities

Technical Authority

● Serve as electrical engineer of record on mission-critical projects — full seal authority, no oversight layer above you

● Set the firm's electrical design standards, calculation methods, drawing conventions, and specification library for mission-critical work

● Own discipline QA/QC — you are the final checkset, and you decide what leaves the office

● Make the topology calls: utility service architecture, medium-voltage distribution, UPS and generator plant configuration, and the redundancy scheme that meets the client's availability target without gold-plating it

● Adjudicate the hard ones — selective coordination versus arc-flash energy, N+1 versus 2N economics, and where concurrent maintainability actually breaks under a real maintenance procedure

Practice Leadership

● Build the electrical team: define the roles, run the hiring, and mentor the engineers you bring in toward their own licensure

● Own discipline utilization, fee development, and project profitability

● Represent the electrical discipline in go/no-go decisions and pursuit strategy

● Establish and maintain relationships with Dominion Energy, AHJs in Virginia and our other project states, serving utilities, and commissioning agents

● Guide the firm's multi-state licensure strategy — which states we pursue Certificates of Authorization in, which engineers carry which licenses, and how we staff a project in a state where we're new

Business Development

● Lead technical positioning in pursuits — interviews, proposal narratives, and the credibility that wins mission-critical work

● Grow and bring client relationships; a principal is expected to influence the top line, not just deliver against it

● Serve as the senior technical voice in front of owners, hyperscale and colocation clients, and their engineering representatives

Delivery

● Author Basis of Design documents and respond to Owner's Project Requirements

● Direct short-circuit, coordination, and arc-flash studies per IEEE 1584 and IEEE 242; own the design-side mitigation strategy under NEC 240.87

● Ensure compliance with NEC Articles 645, 700/701/702, and 708, NFPA 110, NFPA 72, NFPA 75, and NFPA 855 as adopted and amended in each project's jurisdiction — code cycles and state amendments diverge, and getting the applicable edition right on every project is your responsibility

● Validate designs against Uptime Institute Tier objectives and lead Tier Certification of Design Documents submissions where clients pursue them

● Support ASHRAE 90.4 compliance through the Electrical Loss Component path

● Lead commissioning support through Level 4 functional performance testing and Level 5 integrated systems testing, including failure-mode scenarios

Requirements

● Active Professional Engineer license in Virginia — if licensed elsewhere, Inovi will fund and expedite comity through DPOR's APELSCIDLA board, but Virginia licensure is a condition of the role

● Willingness to pursue licensure in additional states as our project geography demands — Inovi covers the fees and the administrative lift

● 15+ years of consulting or design-build experience, with 8+ years in mission-critical facilities

● Prior engineer-of-record experience on at least one data center at Tier III-equivalent concurrent maintainability or better — you sealed it, and you can walk us through the decisions and what you'd change

● Demonstrated ownership of a discipline's technical standards and QA/QC process

● Utility interconnection experience — service capacity studies, queue realities, and negotiating a workable service date

● A clean licensure record in every state you hold, verifiable through the applicable board

● Willingness to travel to project sites in Virginia and out of state (roughly 20–25%)

Strongly Preferred

● Licensure in additional states and an active NCEES Record — the more jurisdictions you can already seal in, the better

● Experience sealing in multiple jurisdictions and working to divergent adopted code editions and state amendments

● Accredited Tier Designer (ATD), current

● A commissioning credential — ACG CxA or ASHRAE BCxP; field time during integrated systems testing is what separates a design that works from one that only calculates

● Direct Dominion Energy coordination experience in Virginia

● Design experience in other major data center markets — Central Ohio, Atlanta, North and Central Texas, Phoenix, Salt Lake, or the Chicago corridor — and familiarity with those utilities and AHJs

● Named participation in a completed TCDD submission

● Medium-voltage design at 15kV class and above

● Existing client relationships in hyperscale, colocation, or enterprise data center ownership

What We Are Looking For

We will ask you to distinguish Uptime Tiers from ANSI/TIA-942 Rated levels, and we will ask what “Tier III certified” does and does not mean. Credential lists without a sealed project set behind them won't survive the technical interview.

This is a role for someone ready to own a discipline outright — technically, commercially, and legally — and to build the team and client relationships that follow.

To Apply

Send your resume, the full list of states you're licensed in (and any in progress), and a short note on the most technically interesting failure you've seen in a mission-critical facility — yours or someone else's — and what it changed about how you design.

We'll want to see a sealed drawing set you were EOR on. Redact freely; we're looking at your judgment, not your client's floor plan.

Inovi is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law. Inovi will use e-Verify to confirm work authorization.

Pay: $165,000.00 - $205,000.00 per year