Per-MW pricing, regional variance, and cost drivers for owners scoping hyperscale & AI builds.
Salary benchmarks across the 14 mission-critical disciplines.
Utility-scale solar, onshore wind, battery energy storage, HV substations, and the gen-tie and interconnection scopes that hold it all together. iRecruit.co's renewable energy recruiters place the project managers, superintendents, electrical and commissioning leaders, and executives who carry projects from NTP to COD — from project engineer to the VP who owns the portfolio.
Not a generalist construction desk with a solar folder. A dedicated renewables practice concentrated in the people who deliver utility-scale generation, storage, and the grid infrastructure behind it — across EPC self-perform and sub-heavy delivery models, on contractor and owner-side teams alike.
100 MW to gigawatt-class PV. Pile production, tracker install, and module logistics at scale; central versus string inverter architectures; EPC self-perform versus sub-heavy delivery models; and the supply-chain reality of UFLPA detentions and domestic-content qualification that now sits inside every module schedule.
Balance-of-plant civil and collection systems, turbine erection and crane logistics, lift planning around weather windows, met mast through COD — plus the repower wave now moving through the first-generation fleet and pulling erection-experienced supervision back into demand.
Containerized LFP systems arriving as sealed OFCI equipment, NFPA 855 siting and fire protection, UL 9540A test data, augmentation planning, grid-forming inverters — and the commissioning-heavy back end where storage projects are actually won or lost.
Collector substations, GSU transformers sitting on 100-week leads, protection and controls, relay testing, SCADA integration — and NERC CIP obligations that attach the moment the gen-tie energizes, not when the project reaches COD.
Gen-tie lines, network upgrades, utility interfaces, backfeed and energization sequencing — the scopes that interconnection queue positions and cluster-study restudies make or break, and where a missed utility witness window can slide a COD by a quarter.
Developers and IPPs building owner's teams — construction managers, owner's engineers, project controls leads — to carry portfolios from NTP through COD and into operations without renting their delivery accountability from the EPC.
Every title below links to a dedicated hiring page for that role. The span is deliberate — iRecruit.co places from project engineer to executive, and most renewables engagements involve a coordinated set of three to five of these roles on the same site or portfolio.
Owns NTP-to-COD delivery on utility-scale solar, wind, and storage sites — subcontracts, module and OFCI logistics, utility interfaces, and the LD exposure that comes with a PPA date.
Runs the field across civil, pile, tracker, and electrical phases — sequencing crews and subs through mechanical completion on sites measured in the thousands of acres.
Owns DC collection, MV feeders, inverter skids, and the substation interface — with the NFPA 70E discipline sites need once they go energized mid-build.
Runs inverter energization, SCADA point-to-point, capacity and performance testing, and the utility witness tests that stand between mechanical completion and COD.
Cost, schedule, and risk across self-perform and sub-heavy scopes — earned value on repetitive production work, module delivery and OFCI tracking, LD exposure forecasting.
OSHA 30/500-grade field safety leadership through the hardest transition in the sector — the day a civil site becomes an energized generating facility.
P6 schedules built on production rates — piles per day, trackers per week, modules per shift — with backfeed and energization sequences logic-tied to utility milestones.
ITP discipline across torque verification, megger and VLF cable testing, weld and pile inspection, and turnover packages the independent engineer will actually accept.
NERC compliance, NABCEP, IEEE interconnection standards, NFPA 70E, OSHA 30 — the paper matters because the work it certifies is audited, witnessed, and insured. A recruiter who can hold this conversation screens in one pass what a generalist misses in three interviews.
A collector substation and its control enclosure sit inside NERC's jurisdiction from the moment the gen-tie energizes. We screen substation, P&C, and commissioning candidates on actual NERC and CIP exposure — who owned the compliance evidence, who sat through the audits, who wrote the switching orders — not on proximity to someone who did.
NABCEP certification is table stakes in C&I solar and a strong fundamentals signal at utility scale. We treat it as a floor, not a finish line — then verify what the candidate has actually built: tracker platforms, central versus string architectures, DC health across a 500 MW array, and the punch-list realities behind each claim.
IEEE standards govern how inverter-based resources ride through disturbances and support the grid. A candidate who has carried a plant through 2800-era compliance and capacity testing is a different tier from one who has only read about it — and a credential-fluent recruiter hears the difference in one phone call.
Arc-flash boundaries, energized work permits, PPE categories, qualified-person documentation. Solar and BESS sites flip from construction sites to generating facilities before the work is finished — so we verify 70E fluency on every electrical, commissioning, and field-leadership candidate, because the site they will run goes hot before it is done.
OSHA 30 is the baseline card for field leadership — necessary, nowhere near sufficient. The screening value is what sits behind it: EMR history the candidate can actually speak to, incident narratives with names and dates, stop-work authority genuinely used. We check all of it before a resume reaches you.
A recruiter who cannot tell IEEE 2800 from a marketing acronym cannot screen a commissioning manager. Most clean energy recruiters forward resumes. A credential-fluent one has already asked which utility witnessed the backfeed, who authored the switching orders, and what the arc-flash study drove — before your hiring manager gives up a single hour.
Whichever model fits your program, every renewables engagement runs on the same delivery discipline — clear scope up front, verified candidates, and full ownership of the process through offer and start.
30 minutes with an energy practice lead. We map the roles, credential stack, and geography against your NTP and COD dates — and quote a concrete proposal, with pricing, within 48 hours.
A dedicated recruiter from the renewables practice runs intake with your hiring managers and calibrates on the first candidates. Qualified slates in 14–21 days on retained engagements.
Every candidate verified against delivered megawatts by technology, the credential stack — NFPA 70E, OSHA 30, NERC exposure — and references who watched them hit, or miss, a COD.
Offers structured for remote-site reality — per-diem, rotation schedules, traveler-versus-relocation math — plus notice-period management and replacement guarantees on retained roles.
30-minute scoping call — we map the roles, credentials, and geography against your build schedule, and quote a concrete proposal within 48 hours.
Four models, each priced per solution. Retained renewable energy executive search where confidentiality and certainty matter most; success-fee support where speed and reach matter; RPO and embedded models where volume makes placement-by-placement pricing the wrong shape. Most renewables clients run two models in parallel across a portfolio.
Retained renewable energy executive search for VPs of construction, project executives, and directors of EPC — confidential, calibrated, and guaranteed. The searches a COD, a financing close, or a business unit actually depends on.
Pricing — retained, 30% of first-year compensation, with replacement guarantee
Success-fee search for project managers, superintendents, engineers, and commissioning talent — full practice sourcing depth, and you pay on placement.
Pricing — 20% success fee, paid on placement
Full recruitment process outsourcing for portfolio ramps and multi-site programs — one team, one process, every open req from field engineer to director.
Pricing — from $15k service fee, with volume-based placement pricing
A dedicated recruiter or pod working inside your systems and standups, scaled to monthly hiring volume — built for sustained renewables hiring across a program.
Pricing — monthly volume-based fee + success fee at a reduced rate
A VP of Construction, a project executive, or a director your COD — or your financing close — depends on, and the search can't leak to the market. Executive search gives you confidentiality, a calibrated slate in 14–21 days, and a replacement guarantee.
A full delivery team — PM, superintendent, electrical, commissioning, QA/QC — hired against a mobilization date across one or several sites. RPO puts one coordinated team on the whole role set, with program pricing instead of stacked placement fees.
Roles open every month across concurrent projects and your internal team is stretched thin. Embedded recruiting puts a dedicated talent partner inside your hiring workflow — running intake, sourcing, and interviews on your systems.
Interconnection queues, not state lines, decide where renewables get built. iRecruit.co places across all four organized markets and the vertically integrated Southeast — and we structure per-diem, rotation, and relocation packages calibrated to remote-site reality, because the best superintendent in Texas is rarely 40 minutes from your laydown yard.
The renewables practice sits inside a wider energy and power platform — and recruits against a live pipeline of tracked projects, not a stale database.
The live pipeline we recruit against — utility-scale solar, wind, and BESS projects moving from queue position to NTP across the U.S., updated as programs are announced and mobilized.
Renewables is one wing of a wider energy practice spanning generation, transmission and distribution, and power delivery — one network, shared across every energy engagement.
Baseload's comeback — SMR programs, uprates, and new build — draws on the same NERC-fluent, commissioning-heavy talent pool. A sibling practice with shared DNA.
A renewable energy recruiter sources, qualifies, and places the construction talent that carries utility-scale solar, wind, and battery storage projects from notice-to-proceed through commercial operation — project managers, superintendents, electrical and commissioning managers, project controls, safety and quality leaders, and the executives above them. The difference between specialist renewable energy recruiters and a generalist solar staffing agency is what gets verified: delivered megawatts by technology and delivery model, credential stacks like NFPA 70E, OSHA 30, and NERC compliance exposure, and references who watched the candidate hit — or miss — a COD date. iRecruit.co recruits across the full span, project engineer to executive, and most of the candidates who close our searches were not applying to anything when we called them.
Fees follow the engagement model, not a single market rate. For retained executive search — VPs of construction, project executives, directors — the standard structure is a retained fee of 30% of first-year compensation, paid in stages, with a replacement guarantee. Success-fee recruiting support for project managers, superintendents, and engineers runs at a 20% success fee, paid only on placement. For portfolio ramps, RPO starts from a $15k service fee with volume-based placement pricing, and embedded recruiting runs on a monthly volume-based fee plus a success fee at a reduced rate. Most renewable energy staffing agencies quote one contingency percentage for everything; pricing per solution runs meaningfully cheaper at volume and meaningfully stronger at the executive end. A 30-minute scoping call gets you a concrete, per-role quote within 48 hours.
Utility-scale solar is a production build: civil-heavy, repetitive scope across a very large footprint — piles per day, trackers per week, modules per shift. It rewards superintendents and PMs who think in production rates, manage large field workforces and multiple subcontractors, and hold quality discipline across thousands of identical operations. BESS is the inverse: a smaller footprint and headcount, but far deeper electrical, controls, and commissioning demands — NFPA 855 siting and fire protection, UL 9540A test data, factory-witnessed enclosures arriving as sealed OFCI equipment, SCADA integration, and grid-code compliance testing under IEEE 2800 before energization. Solar hiring peaks mid-build; BESS hiring is weighted to the back end, where commissioning talent is the scarcest resource in the sector. Hybrid solar-plus-storage sites need both profiles — which is exactly why the two searches should not be run as one.
30-minute scoping call. We map the roles, the credentials, the geography, and the engagement model that fits your program — and quote a concrete proposal within 48 hours.
iRecruit.co places project engineers through executives across utility-scale solar, wind, storage, and grid programs in every major U.S. market. Submit your resume to be matched to confidential roles across the searches we run.
