Hardware Engineering and R&D - Electrical Engineer 3

Job#: 3020760

Job Description:

Client: Microsoft

Contract: Can extend to 18 months

Location: REMOTE (will be working EST hours Mon to Fri)

Top 3 Must-Have HARD Skills & years of experience for each:

• Alarm Management Experience: 2-3 years
• Professional engineering experience: 5-7 years
• Datacenter, Oil/Gas, Nuclear, Power Generation, Chemical or Manufacturing industry experience: 3-5 Years

A typical day in this role begins with reviewing recent Alarm Flood IcMs and recurring alarm trends across supported sites. The engineer evaluates alarm behavior, severity, frequency, and initiating conditions to identify opportunities for improvement.

Daily work includes direct collaboration with site Operations, Engineering, and Instrumentation/Controls teams. This collaboration focuses on reviewing alarms currently impacting operators and determining whether changes can be made to the way alarms are engineered-such as setpoints, delays, deadbands, suppression logic, or state-based alarming-to reduce alarm volume and improve alarm quality.

The engineer actively participates in local and regional alarm management meetings, representing the Global Alarm Management Program to ensure alarm improvements align with program standards and best practices. This ensures proposed changes drive measurable reductions in nuisance alarms while maintaining safe and reliable system operation.

In parallel, the engineer works closely with other members of the Global Alarm Management team to evaluate whether site-level improvements are candidates for global implementation. Promising changes are analyzed for scalability, risk, and applicability across similar systems and regions, supporting continuous improvement of alarm performance across the global fleet.

Throughout the day, the role balances technical analysis, stakeholder collaboration, and engineering judgment, ensuring alarms serve their intended purpose: notifying operators of abnormal conditions that require action-without contributing to alarm fatigue or operator overload.

What is the ideal background of a candidate for this role?:

Worked within a formal Alarm Management Program

Participated in:

Alarm rationalization sessions

Alarm flood analysis

Standing alarm reduction efforts

Practical experience with:

Alarm setpoints

Delay and deadband tuning

Alarm suppression / shelving

State-based alarming

Familiarity with alarm management standards such as:

ISA-18.2

What are unique selling points that would get candidates interested in your role over another?: The CO+I Alarm Management Program is a newly created program that has supported local datacenters in a large volume of nuisance alarm reductions. As the program begins to mature, candidates will be able to support in the maturity of this program and continued positive impact to our local datacenters globally. This program is an important initiative to serve our operations customers by providing support for high quality, actionable alarms globally.

How will contractor performance be measured?: Alarm Flood IcM Closure

Alarm Reduction by Region

Deployment of Alarm Changes Globally

Purpose of the Team: The purpose of this team is to improve alarm management across global data centers by reducing unnecessary alarms, mitigating alarm floods, and ensuring engineering-driven changes rather than temporary fixes.

Key projects: This role will contribute to alarm suppression initiatives, global change management projects, and analysis of electrical/mechanical alarm patterns to drive consistent improvements across global sites.

Required Candidate Preparation: Candidates should have a solid understanding of electrical systems, alarm management concepts, data center operations, and examples of engineering-driven changes they've previously implemented prepared prior to the assessment

The Electrical Engineer supports the Alarm Management Program (AMP) by analysis of data, evaluating, and improving electrical power and control systems with emphasis on alarm performance. The role ensures alarms generated by Electrical Power Monitoring Systems (EPMS), supporting instrumentation, and associated control systems are reliable, actionable, and aligned to alarm management principles (e.g., ISA 18.2) used in datacenters and other mission critical environments.

Key Responsibilities

- Design, develop, evaluate, and test electrical equipment, systems, and controls used in commercial, industrial, military, and scientific environments with focus on alarm behavior.

- Interpret engineering drawings and blueprints to assess alarm sources, instrumentation placement, and electrical system configurations.

- Manufacture and support electrical equipment, machinery, controls, wiring, lighting, and protection systems with consideration for alarm reliability and operational impact.

- Evaluate cost effectiveness, reliability, safety, and performance of electrical designs and alarm models.

- Estimate time and cost to complete engineering projects related to alarm improvements and electrical system modifications.

- Simulate, test, and analyze system and machine behavior to validate alarm performance during normal, abnormal, and transition operating states.

- Support formal alarm management activities including alarm rationalization, setpoint reviews, delay and deadband tuning, shelving and suppression strategies.

- Work with cross functional teams to drive reductions in nuisance alarms and alarm floods through engineering and configuration improvements.

- Investigate and assess vendor and competitor products for alarm behavior, system integration, and operational usability.

- Provide technical input for incident remediation by identifying contributing electrical alarm design factors and recommending preventive changes.

Skills and Competencies

- Strong analytical, problem solving, and systems thinking skills.

- Effective verbal and written communication skills to explain alarm behavior and recommend design changes.

- Creativity and attention to detail in engineering analysis and alarm strategy design.

- Team oriented mindset with demonstrated leadership, mentoring, and performance feedback capabilities.

- Ability to interpret sketches, schematics, and engineering drawings.

- Perform detailed electrical calculations and computations.

- Establish and apply manufacturing, construction, and installation standards and specifications.

- Apply principles of electrical theory, measurement, instrumentation, and control systems to alarm management challenges.

- Proficiency with computer applications and engineering design software used for electrical and control system analysis.

Education and Experience

- Bachelor's degree in electrical engineering or related field.

- 5-7 years of professional engineering experience.

- Direct involvement in alarm management programs within industrial, mission critical, or process control environments.

- Experience in data centers, Oil & Gas, nuclear, power generation, chemical, or manufacturing industries is acceptable, provided alarm management experience is demonstrated.

Apex Systems is a world-class IT services company that serves thousands of clients across the globe. When you join Apex, you become part of a team that values innovation, collaboration, and continuous learning. We offer quality career resources, training, certifications, development opportunities, and a comprehensive benefits package. Our commitment to excellence is reflected in many awards, including ClearlyRated's Best of Staffing in Talent Satisfaction in the United States and Great Place to Work in the United Kingdom and Mexico. Apex uses a virtual recruiter as part of the application process. Click for more details.

Apex Benefits Overview: Apex offers a range of supplemental benefits, including medical, dental, vision, life, disability, and other insurance plans that offer an optional layer of financial protection. We offer an ESPP (employee stock purchase program) and a 401K program which allows you to contribute typically within 30 days of starting, with a company match after 12 months of tenure. Apex also offers a HSA (Health Savings Account on the HDHP plan), a SupportLinc Employee Assistance Program (EAP) with up to 8 free counseling sessions, a corporate discount savings program and other discounts. In terms of professional development, Apex hosts an on-demand training program, provides access to certification prep and a library of technical and leadership courses/books/seminars once you have 6+ months of tenure, and certification discounts and other perks to associations that include CompTIA and IIBA. Apex has a dedicated customer service team for our Consultants that can address questions around benefits and other resources, as well as a certified Career Coach. You can access a full list of our benefits, programs, support teams and resources within our 'Welcome Packet' as well, which an Apex team member can provide.