Principal Project Engineer (Illinois)

About Us Solar Landscape is the nation’s leading commercial rooftop solar developer. With 800 megawatts of solar across 75+ million square feet of rooftop space, the company brings unmatched scale and expertise to the commercial real estate industry. Solar Landscape partners with the country’s largest property owners to transform underutilized rooftops into reliable, revenue-generating solar assets.

Founded by construction professionals, Solar Landscape is a vertically integrated company that develops, builds, owns, and operates solar projects nationwide. The company was named the #1 National Commercial Rooftop Solar Developer by Solar Power World in 2025, recognized as the #1 Distributed Generation Developer by New Project Media, and awarded the U.S. Department of Energy’s Grand Prize for clean energy.

Headquartered in Asbury Park, New Jersey, Solar Landscape has offices in Chicago, Baltimore, and New York City and operates in over a dozen states nationwide.

About The Role

As a Principal Solar Engineer, you will be responsible for overseeing, designing, and supporting commercial and grid supplied Solar Photovoltaic systems. This role requires technical expertise in solar PV systems, strong leadership skills, and the ability to coordinate with multiple stakeholders to ensure project success. You will play a critical role in managing project teams, guiding engineering processes, and ensuring compliance with regulatory standards.

Responsibilities

- Support Design team as part of initial training process and where needed thereafter

- Oversee/Design/Support commercial and grid supplied Solar Photovoltaic systems.

- Lead project teams, providing clear direction, objectives, and support to team members

- Mentor and coach junior engineers, fostering their professional development and technical skills

- Prepare technical drawings, specifications of PV systems to ensure that installation and operations conform to standards and customer requirements

- Conduct detailed site evaluations

- Coordinate with structural, electrical, geotechnical, and civil Professional Engineers during design process to assure the design meets technical and code requirements. Manage professional engineer review process to obtain PE stamps on drawing packages

- Provide technical support to Commercial Sales, and Finance for the development of technical proposals and customer presentations

- Participate in meetings and technical presentations to customers, investors, and PV technical community

- Provide engineering/technical input and direction to site evaluation, interconnect agreements and other associated tasks

- Work with appropriate electric utilities to prepare and process interconnection paperwork

- Review specifications for purchases of materials or equipment

- Identify appropriate equipment for use in PV systems and perform technical qualification of vendors

- Support Project Management and construction team with ongoing technical support, RFI’s and As-builts

- Review of other design engineers’ work during design phase

- Develop necessary customer deliverables such as concept module layouts, single line diagrams, equipment or material specifications, engineering validation, 3-D renderings, and photo simulations

- Assist with Request for Proposal (RFP’s) review, technical writing, and response coordination

Qualifications

- Bachelor’s Degree in Engineering; advanced degree preferred.

- At least 5 years' experience in solar design and project engineering

- Proficient with current AutoCAD software version, as well as MS Office suite

- Experience in electrical, mechanical, structural, or civil engineering design

- Leadership experience, including team supervision, mentorship, and conflict resolution

- Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to present complex technical information in a clear and concise manner

- Strong organizational, problem-solving, and analytical skills; able to manage priorities and workflow

- Ability to work independently and as a member of various teams

- Excellent leadership and communication skills, with the ability to inspire and motivate teams to achieve common goals

- Acute attention to detail

- Ability to deal effectively with a diversity of individuals at all organizational levels

- Good judgement with the ability to make timely and sound decisions

- Demonstrated ability to plan and organize projects

Benefits And Perks

Solar Landscape’s company culture is second to none.

Our employees combine our mission, grit and drive with a rebel’s attitude that is changing the industry:

- Located in the heart of historic Asbury Park, our state-of-the-art office space offers flexible workstations encouraging collaboration and movement

- Employees come together to eat every day! Like in a home, our gourmet kitchen is the heart of the office. Solar Landscape has a full-time in-house chef cooking daily farm-to-table meals using locally sourced organic food

- Also included for employees is our competitive compensation package; a 401(k) employer-match; health, dental, & vision insurance, flexible paid time off and holiday PTO; We provide healthy snacks, coffee, volunteer opportunities, company outings, and more!