Utility Technical Strategist

Job Description

About CI Group\n

Creative Intelligence Group (CI Group) helps technology companies, infrastructure developers and investors navigate technical and commercial decisions in the electric utility industry. We are led by an electrical engineer with utility field operations and distribution engineering experience. Our clients hire us because we understand how utilities actually evaluate, buy and deploy new technology.

We are growing our strategic advisory work and building a bench of utility experts who can carry that judgment alongside our founder.

We are looking for a utility technical strategist to work with us part-time as an independent contractor. You will be the technical check on what our utility technology clients say to the market. You will also help shape their strategy behind the scenes.

Our clients build products and services for electric utilities. Their messaging, proposals and sales materials need to hold up in front of utility engineers and operators. You will review that work for technical accuracy and utility realism. You will also help us pressure-test the go-to-market thinking behind it.

You do not need 20 years of experience. You need enough hands-on utility experience to know when a claim will not survive a conversation with a distribution engineer, and the confidence to say so. This is a flexible role that we expect to grow as our advisory practice grows.

Technical QA of client materials

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• Review messaging, white papers, case studies, web copy, sales decks, RFP responses and statements of qualifications before they reach utility audiences.
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• Check technical claims, terminology, units and calculations. Examples include MW versus MVA, the stated power factor behind a load figure and the correct version of a cited standard.
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• Flag claims that are true in a lab but unrealistic in a utility operating environment, such as integration effort, deployment timelines or interoperability with existing systems.
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• Catch distinctions that utility readers notice right away: investor-owned versus cooperative versus municipal utilities, transmission versus distribution and regional regulatory differences.
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• Give clear written feedback that our marketing and delivery team can act on without a follow-up call.
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Strategy behind the scenes

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• Help clients map who inside a utility owns the problem, the budget and the approval. This often spans engineering, operations, IT/OT security, procurement and regulatory.
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• Identify the operational objections a utility will raise and the proof a client will need to answer them.
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• Pressure-test pilot plans and the path from pilot to production.
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• Translate product capabilities into utility use cases an operator would recognize.
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Client-facing support

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• Join selected client calls as the technical voice, including working sessions with client product and engineering teams.
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• Lead routine technical conversations on your own once you are ramped up.
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Building repeatable methods

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• Help build QA checklists, review templates and a library of approved and unverified claims so our quality does not depend on any one person.
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• Over time, support early-stage power and infrastructure diligence work as that practice grows.
  
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• Typically 8 to 15 years working in or closely with electric utilities.
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• Hands-on experience in at least two of these areas: distribution engineering or planning, grid operations, protection and control, substation engineering, DER interconnection, asset management or grid modernization programs (for example ADMS, DERMS, AMI, OMS or SCADA).
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• A working understanding of how utilities make decisions and spend money. That includes capital planning, cost recovery through rate cases, procurement, pilots and IT/OT security reviews.
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• Strong technical writing and editing. You can explain a technical problem clearly to a marketer and to an executive.
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• Independent judgment. You are comfortable telling a client that a claim does not hold up, and you can suggest what to say instead.
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• Reliability on deadlines and a habit of closing the loop without reminders.
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• Currently independent, working in consulting or retired from a utility role. We prefer not to engage current utility employees for this role.
  
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• A Professional Engineer (PE) license or EIT certification. This strengthens your review credibility, though you will not stamp work for CI Group.
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• Experience on the vendor or consulting side selling to utilities, in addition to time inside or serving a utility.
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• Exposure to more than one utility type, such as investor-owned, cooperative or municipal.
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• Utility-side experience evaluating vendor RFP responses or pilot proposals.
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• Familiarity with standards and frameworks our clients reference, such as IEEE 1547, NERC CIP, IEC 61850 or IEEE 2030.5.
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• Exposure to large load interconnection, load growth planning or data center power questions.
  
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• Independent contractor. You run your own practice. You set your own hours and methods and use your own tools. Working through your own LLC or similar business entity is preferred.
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• Part-time and remote. Work comes in as client needs arise. Some weeks will be busy and some quiet. We will agree on an expected monthly range up front so you can plan around it.
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• Flexible pay structure. We are open to an hourly rate or a monthly retainer for a set block of availability, with hourly billing above it. Tell us which structure works for you and your rate.
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• Room to grow. As our advisory practice grows, we expect to offer more scope, more client ownership and a larger role. We will build that path together based on the work and the fit.
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• Standard agreement. Our consulting agreement covers confidentiality, ownership of work product and a narrow non-solicitation of our clients and team.
  
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• Advisory, not engineer of record. Your work is technical review, screening and advice. It does not include stamped drawings, formal engineering studies or utility determinations. When a question needs one of those, we bring in the right licensed specialist.
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• Clear escalation. You own routine technical review. Questions that are novel, high-risk or strategically sensitive go to our principal with your recommendation attached.
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• Defined work. Every request comes with a brief, a deliverable and a due date. One person owns each engagement on our side.
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• Confidentiality. You will see unreleased products and sensitive client strategy. That information stays with the engagement.
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• Conflict disclosure. Tell us about current clients or relationships that could overlap with ours. Working with other clients is fine. We just need to know where the lines are.
  
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Apply here on Linkedin. Short list applicants will be sent a link to provide additional information. No recruiters please.