The California Independent System Operator (ISO) manages the flow of electricity across the high-voltage, long-distance power lines that make up 80 percent of California's power grid. We safeguard the economy and well-being of 30 million Californians by "operating the Grid reliably" 24/7.

As the impartial grid operator, the California ISO opens access to the wholesale power market that is designed to diversify resources and lower prices. It also grants equal access to 25,865 circuit-miles of power lines and reduces barriers to diverse resources competing to bring power to customers.

The California ISO's function is often compared to that of air traffic controllers. It would be grossly unfair for air traffic controllers to represent one airline and profit from allowing that company's planes to go through before others. In the same way, the California ISO operates independently—managing the electron traffic on a power grid we do not own—making sure electricity is safely delivered to utilities and consumers on time and reliably.

Under the general direction of the Manager, leads the planning, design, implementation, and development of recommendations and requirements to enhance applications in the areas of forecasting, electronic tagging, geospatial and weather/forecast service providers. Responsibilities include production management, vendor management and customer relationship management as it relates to business unit objectives and initiatives.  Debugs, researches, analyzes, tests, and implements defect corrections. Generates test cases and creates test plans. Identifies root causes of systemic issues and recommends solutions. Gathers and develops business requirements for system enhancements and release bundles and manages vendors to convert requirements into detailed design specifications. Provides leadership and technical expertise to IT project teams to produce effective business solutions that are delivered on schedule and on budget. Identifies project dependencies and communicates level of effort to project management teams. Provides third level support and back-up support to less senior staff and brings awareness of IT processes and procedures to other internal departments.

What You Will Be Doing:

• Provides technical expertise and leadership in translating electric demand, solar generation, and wind generation forecast as well as weather provider service requirements into application functional requirements and designs for software systems. Initiates improvement methods and procedures for collecting and processing demand, energy, Variable Energy Resources (VER), weather, and economic data by analyzing historical and forecasted electric demand, generation, and energy trends and related data. Performs technical project lead role for the design, documentation, testing, implementation and third level support of applications for weather/forecast service providers. Provides third level support for production and non-production Forecasting applications.
• Provides technical expertise and leadership in translating interchange scheduling business requirements into functional requirements and designs for software systems. Leads business unit discussions and projects involving interchange scheduling as the technical subject matter expert. Manages system configuration and leads new interchange scheduling initiatives, project delivery and testing. Provides third level support for production and non-production Interchange Scheduling systems.
• Manages portfolio of applications used by the Forecasting and Interchange Scheduling business units.  Leads the development and implementation of new functionality related to geospatial and weather service data providers. Provides technical expertise to business units and other IT departments on initiatives and projects that impact the Forecasting and Interchange Scheduling application portfolios.
• Manages multiple software vendor interactions insuring ISO needs and contractual obligations are met. Educates vendors on ISO process to delivery new systems and modification to existing systems and reports vendor performance to management.  Manages the vendor relationship in the development and implementation of new functionality and leads the diagnosing and resolving issues that may arise with the new functionality.

Level of Education and Discipline:

A Bachelor's degree (BA, BS) or equivalent education, training or experience in Statistics, Mathematics, Economics, Engineering, Information Technology, Business or related field. Master Degree preferred.

Amount of Experience:

Equivalent years of education and training, plus six (6) or more years related experience.

Type of Experience:

Experience using analytical and/or optimization techniques from one of the following disciplines: statistics, probabilities, economics, or decision analysis, including optimization methods. Root cause analysis, business analysis, project experience or experience developing business or system requirements. Experience in the following strongly desired but not required: neural networks, optimization techniques, forecasting, and/or electronic tagging. Electric industry experience with utilities or ISO preferred. Understanding of the CAISO market design and timings.

Additional Skills and Abilities:

Demonstrates fundamental leadership skills with the ability to work effectively in a team environment as a leader, facilitator and team member.  Ability to provide practical and feasible solutions to problems, keeping multiple conflicting considerations into account. Excellent interpersonal, communication, and writing skills required. Excellent analytical skills are required, including the ability to effectively communicate complex technical materials and concepts in a non-technical manner.  Must be able to handle a dynamic and changing work environment, and work independently. Strong computer skills in Microsoft Office Suite. Self-motivated, problem solving skills and the ability to influence others without direct authority.

**We will also consider a Senior Level position.  This level requires a bachelor's degree in Statistics, Mathematics, Economics, Engineering, Information Technology, Business or related field or equivalent years of education and training, plus five (5) or more year related experience. ***