Technical Program Manager - EV Charging Platform OCPP & NET Core

WHO WE ARE:

We are an end-to-end Renewable Energy provider. We offer products to commercial and enterprise clients in EV Charging solutions, Fleet Electrification, Solar Micro-grids, Energy storage, Hydroponic farming and Rain Water/Grey Water collection systems. We have been experiencing tremendous growth in all these areas and operate under several government rebate programs that ensure a steady and reliable flow of revenues. Our company handles the entire flow of providing these products and services beginning with Sales, Provisioning, Design and Engineering, Contracting and Construction, Servicing and Maintenance. If you are passionate about the EV industry and working with awesome teams in a fast-growing company, we want to speak with you! Join us in making a meaningful impact!

JOB SUMMARY
You will own the delivery of our cloud Charging Station Management System (CSMS): a .NET Core platform that keeps thousands of DC fast chargers and Level 2 stations online, billing correctly, and compliant with OCPP 1.6J and 2.0.1. The chargers are hardware from multiple manufacturers running firmware we do not control; the platform must talk to all of them reliably, at scale, over long-lived WebSocket connections.

This is a hands-on technical program role, not a project-coordination role. You will read OCPP message logs, sit in on architecture reviews, decide when a firmware vendor's deviation from spec gets a workaround versus a pushback, and translate utility, regulator and customer requirements into engineering milestones the team can commit to. You are the single point of accountability for whether the platform roadmap ships on time and interoperates in the field.
You will work across backend engineering, firmware and hardware partners, QA and certification, field operations, and commercial teams, and act as the primary technical interface to charger manufacturers, charge point operators (CPOs), e-mobility service providers (eMSPs) and enterprise fleet customers.

ESSENTIAL FUNCTIONS:

Program strategy and roadmap
• Own the CSMS technical roadmap: define program scope, phase gates, success criteria and release cadence, and keep it aligned with commercial commitments and regulatory deadlines.
• Translate business, customer and regulatory requirements into epics, acceptance criteria and milestones engineering can estimate and commit to.
• Run quarterly planning, weekly program reviews and release go/no-go decisions; publish status, risks and decisions to leadership in a form non-engineers can act on.
• Prioritize across competing demands (new charger onboarding, customer integrations, protocol upgrades, platform reliability) with explicit trade-offs, not a growing backlog.

OCPP implementation and interoperability
• Oversee implementation and conformance of OCPP 1.6J and 2.0.1 across all supported profiles: Core, Firmware Management, Local Auth List, Reservation, Smart Charging, Remote Trigger, and 2.0.1 functional blocks including Provisioning, Authorization, Transactions, Tariff & Cost, Diagnostics and Security.
• Own the charger onboarding program: define the certification matrix per manufacturer/firmware version, run interoperability test plans, and sign off before a model is approved for field deployment.
• Maintain the known-deviations register: where a vendor's firmware departs from spec, decide between a platform-side workaround, a vendor fix, or declining support, and document the decision.
• Lead the OCPP 1.6J to 2.0.1 migration plan for the installed base, including dual-protocol operation, security profile upgrades (TLS, client certificates), and firmware rollout sequencing.
• Coordinate participation in OCA plugfests and third-party conformance testing; track OCPP 2.1 and ISO 15118-20 readiness.

Architecture and engineering partnership
• Partner with .NET Core architects on an event-driven microservices design that handles tens of thousands of concurrent WebSocket sessions, high-frequency MeterValues ingestion, and exactly-once transaction handling.
• Set and enforce non-functional requirements: connection stability, message latency, offline transaction recovery, horizontal scalability, observability and multi-region failover.
• Review technical designs for protocol correctness, backward compatibility and operational risk before implementation starts.
• Ensure the platform exposes clean, versioned APIs for customer portals, mobile apps, fleet management systems, payment processors and OCPI partners.

Risk, dependency and quality management
• Identify and mitigate hardware-to-cloud compatibility risks, firmware update bottlenecks, certificate expiry, and cross-team dependencies before they affect field uptime.
• Own the incident review loop for protocol-related outages: root cause, corrective action, and roadmap change if the failure is structural.
• Define release quality bars: automated OCPP conformance tests, load tests against charger simulators, and staged rollouts with rollback criteria.
• Track and report platform KPIs: charger uptime, session success rate, transaction reconciliation accuracy, mean time to onboard a new charger model, and firmware campaign completion rate.

Stakeholder, vendor and customer management
• Act as the primary technical interface for charger manufacturers, firmware vendors, utilities, CPOs, eMSPs and enterprise fleet customers.
• Negotiate technical scope, timelines and acceptance criteria with vendors; hold them to delivery and escalate with evidence when they slip.
• Lead customer-facing technical onboarding for large deployments: integration design, cutover plans, pilot acceptance and hypercare.
• Drive hardware certification and compliance workstreams (UL/ETL listing, Energy Star, NEVI/CFI program requirements, utility make-ready and demand-response integrations) in coordination with hardware and compliance teams.

Security and compliance
• Own the OCPP 2.0.1 security program: security profiles 1–3, certificate lifecycle management (CSMS, charging station and V2G certificates), secure firmware signing and secure event logging.
• Ensure the platform meets payment (PCI DSS scope), data privacy and customer contractual security requirements; coordinate penetration tests and remediation.
• Keep audit-grade records of metering, transactions and firmware versions to support LCFS and utility incentive reporting.

Delivery and operations
• Run the release train: sprint rituals, release notes, change management, and coordination with field operations for firmware campaigns and maintenance windows.
• Build and maintain program documentation: integration guides, charger compatibility matrix, runbooks, and a decision log.
• Coach engineers and junior PMs on protocol fluency and structured problem solving; raise the team's shared understanding of how chargers actually behave in the field.

Required qualifications
• 7+ years in technical program or engineering management roles delivering backend or IoT platforms, including 3+ years in EV charging, energy, telematics or connected-device systems.
• Working fluency in OCPP 1.6J and 2.0.1: you can read a message trace, spot a BootNotification/Heartbeat/StatusNotification problem, explain the Transaction lifecycle in 2.0.1, and describe how Smart Charging profiles stack.
• Strong understanding of .NET Core / C# backend systems: ASP.NET Core, async programming, dependency injection, and the trade-offs of microservice decomposition. You do not need to write production code, but you must hold your own in a design review.
• Hands-on experience with WebSocket-based, long-lived connection systems at scale, including reconnection, message ordering, idempotency and offline queuing.
• Cloud platform experience (Azure preferred; AWS acceptable): managed Kubernetes or container services, message brokers, managed databases, and observability tooling.
• Demonstrated record of shipping multi-quarter programs with hardware dependencies, including vendor management and certification or compliance gates.
• Structured risk management: you keep a live register, quantify impact, and escalate early with options rather than surprises.
• Clear written and verbal communication for mixed audiences, from firmware engineers to executives and customer procurement teams.
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.

Preferred qualifications
• OCPI 2.2.1 roaming integrations with eMSPs and roaming hubs (Hubject, Gireve), including tariff, CDR and session modules.
• ISO 15118-2 / -20 and Plug & Charge: certificate pools, contract certificates, and the CSMS role in the PnC ecosystem.
• Prior delivery against OCA certification, including plugfest participation or running a lab with charger simulators and test tools.
• DC fast charging hardware knowledge: power modules, dispenser/cabinet splits, CCS1 and NACS (SAE J3400) connectors, dynamic power sharing and load management.
• Utility and grid programs: demand response (OpenADR), managed charging tariffs, demand subscription rates, and interconnection or make-ready processes.
• Regulatory and incentive familiarity: NEVI/CFI uptime and reporting requirements, state incentive programs, and LCFS or similar clean-fuel credit reporting that depends on metering accuracy.
• Payments and billing in EV charging: credit card terminals, pre-authorization flows, EMV, and kWh versus time-based pricing.
• Experience with Azure IoT Hub, Service Bus or Event Hubs, Kafka, Redis, PostgreSQL or SQL Server, and time-series storage for meter data.
• Fleet depot charging: schedule-driven charging, vehicle telematics integration, and uptime SLAs for commercial fleets.
• Awareness of OCPP 2.1 (published 2025) and its implications for bidirectional charging and DER integration.
• PMP, PgMP, SAFe or equivalent program management certification.

Note: This job description is intended to provide a general overview of the position. It is not an exhaustive list of all responsibilities, duties, and skills required. 
What Success Looks Like
90 Days
• Full map of the current CSMS architecture, charger fleet and open protocol issues.
• Risk register and known-deviations register live.
• One release shipped on the cadence you defined.

6 Months
• OCPP 2.0.1 migration plan approved and under way for the first charger family.
• Charger onboarding time cut measurably against the baseline you set in month one.
• Vendor scorecards in place for every active manufacturer.

12 Months
• Platform meets its uptime and session-success targets with incident volume trending down.
• Two or more new charger models certified and in the field without protocol-related escalations.
• Program roadmap, KPIs and release process trusted by leadership and customers as the source of truth.

AAP/EEO Statement:
Zero Impact Solutions is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, or protected veteran status or any other characteristic protected by federal, state, or local law, and will not be discriminated against on the basis of disability. 
Schedule:
8-hour shift Mondays – Fridays
 
Ability to commute/relocate:
Costa Mesa, CA 92626: Reliably commute or planning to relocate before starting work (Required) 
Work Location: In-person (office) no hybrid or remote work