Koch Industries

Director, Commissioning & Startup

Koch Industries$150K — $180K *
Energy & Utilities
5 - 7 years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • Bachelor's degree in Engineering or higher
  • Experience in commissioning, startup, or project execution roles
  • Proven leadership of multi-disciplinary teams in large-scale energy or infrastructure environments
  • Knowledge of developing operational readiness requirements and testing protocols
  • Experience managing utility coordination and energization processes
  • Track record in leading standardization and operational excellence initiatives
  • Experience building high-performing teams and developing leaders
  • Willing to travel up to 50% as business needs require

Responsibilities

  • Develop and execute enterprise commissioning and startup strategy
  • Oversee cold and hot commissioning, startup, and handover activities
  • Ensure projects transition predictably from construction to operations
  • Implement and improve standard operating procedures and commissioning plans
  • Establish governance and quality assurance processes across projects
  • Mentor and develop high-performing leaders and technical professionals
  • Foster a culture of accountability and continuous learning
  • Collaborate across departments to align commissioning needs early in project development
  • Identify improvement opportunities through operational reviews and analytics

Benefits

  • Medical, dental, and vision insurance
  • Flexible spending and health savings accounts
  • Life insurance and disability coverage
  • Retirement benefits
  • Paid time off and vacation
  • Educational assistance programs
  • Potential for infertility assistance and paid parental leave
Full Job Description
DEPCOM Power has an immediate need for a Director, Commissioning & Startup. This role provides strategic leadership for DEPCOM's commissioning, energization, startup, and operational readiness functions across the project portfolio. This leader is responsible for developing the enterprise vision, standards, talent, and operational systems required to safely and predictably transition projects from construction through energization and commercial operation.

Through Koch's Principle Based Management (PBM) business philosophy, this advanced leadership role creates long-term value by building organizational capability, standardizing best practices, improving execution predictability, and driving continuous improvement across all commissioning and startup activities. The Director serves as the enterprise authority for commissioning strategy and is accountable for developing scalable systems, technical excellence, and future leadership capability that support sustainable business growth.

This role will be physically based out of our headquarters in Scottsdale, AZ.

This role is not eligible for Visa Sponsorship

What You Will Do

Enterprise Strategy & Operational Leadership
  • Develop and execute the enterprise commissioning and startup strategy aligned with business objectives and customer commitments.
  • Provide strategic oversight of cold commissioning, hot commissioning, startup, energization, turnover, and handover activities.
  • Ensure successful transition of projects from construction to operations with predictable outcomes in safety, quality, schedule, and performance.

Standardization & Operating System Development
  • Develop, implement, and continually improve standard operating procedures (SOPs), commissioning plans, inspection and test plans (ITPs), test forms, startup protocols, and operational readiness requirements.
  • Establish governance and quality assurance processes that ensure consistent execution across all projects.
  • Capture and institutionalize lessons learned to continuously improve enterprise performance.

Capability Building & Organizational Development
  • Recruit, coach, mentor, and develop high-performing leaders and technical professionals
  • Establish succession plans and talent pipelines to ensure organizational sustainability
  • Foster a culture of ownership, accountability, knowledge sharing, and continuous learning

Cross-Functional Leadership
  • Partner closely with Engineering, Project Management, Procurement, Logistics, Construction, Operations, Quality, HSE, OEMs, utilities, and customers.
  • Align commissioning requirements early in project development to improve execution outcomes and reduce risk.

Continuous Improvement & Innovation
  • Establish and monitor leading and lagging performance indicators.
  • Conduct operational reviews to identify opportunities for improvement and value creation.
  • Leverage digital tools, automation, analytics, and emerging technologies to improve startup effectiveness and readiness.


You Will Need (Basic Qualifications)

  • Bachelor's degree or higher in Engineering
  • Experience in commissioning, startup, construction, operations, project execution, or related technical leadership roles
  • Experience leading multi-disciplinary teams in large-scale industrial, energy, utility, renewable energy, EPC, or infrastructure environments
  • Experience developing commissioning plans, startup procedures, operational readiness requirements, testing protocols, and enterprise standards
  • Experience managing utility coordination, OEM integration, energization planning, and turnover processes
  • Experience leading organizational transformation, standardization, and operational excellence initiatives
  • Experience developing leaders and building high-performing teams
  • Willing and able to travel up to 50% of the time as business needs permit


What Will Put You Ahead (Preferred Qualifications)

  • Professional Engineer (PE) license
  • PMP, PMI-SP, Lean, Six Sigma, or equivalent certifications
  • Utility-scale solar, battery energy storage, power generation, transmission, or electrical infrastructure experience
  • Experience implementing enterprise operating systems and governance frameworks
  • Experience with power systems commissioning, grid interconnection, SCADA, controls integration, and operational readiness programs
  • Experience leading geographically dispersed teams and large project portfolios


At Koch companies, we are entrepreneurs. This means we openly challenge the status quo, find new ways to create value and get rewarded for our individual contributions. Any compensation range provided for a role is an estimate determined by available market data. The actual amount may be higher or lower than the range provided considering each candidate's knowledge, skills, abilities, and geographic location. If you have questions, please speak to your recruiter about the flexibility and detail of our compensation philosophy.

Hiring Philosophy

All Koch companies value diversity of thought, perspectives, aptitudes, experiences, and backgrounds. We are Military Ready and Second Chance employers. Learn more about our hiring philosophy here .

Our Benefits

Our goal is for each employee, and their families, to live fulfilling and healthy lives. We provide essential resources and support to build and maintain physical, financial, and emotional strength - focusing on overall wellbeing so you can focus on what matters most. Our benefits plan includes - medical, dental, vision, flexible spending and health savings accounts, life insurance, ADD, disability, retirement, paid vacation/time off, educational assistance, and may also include infertility assistance, paid parental leave and adoption assistance. Specific eligibility criteria is set by the applicable Summary Plan Description, policy or guideline and benefits may vary by geographic region. If you have questions on what benefits apply to you, please speak to your recruiter.

Additionally, everyone has individual work and personal needs. We seek to enable the best work environment that helps you and the business work together to produce superior results.

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About Koch Industries

Koch Industries, Inc. is an American privately-held multinational conglomerate corporation based in Wichita, Kansas. Its subsidiaries are involved in the manufacturing, refining, and distribution of petroleum, chemicals, energy, fiber, intermediates and polymers, minerals, fertilizers, pulp and paper, chemical technology equipment, ranching, finance, commodities trading, and investing. Koch owns Infor, Invista, Georgia-Pacific, Molex, Flint Hills Resources, Koch Pipeline, Koch Fertilizer, Koch Minerals, Matador Cattle Company, i360, and Guardian Industries. The firm employs 120,000 people in 60 countries, with about half of its business in the United States. The company is the largest non-Canadian landowner in the Athabasca oil sands. With annual revenues of $110 billion by 2014, the company is the largest privately held company in the United States. In 2007, it was ranked as the largest privately held company. If Koch Industries had been a public company in 2013, it would have ranked 17th in the Fortune 500. The company was founded by its namesake, Fred C. Koch, in 1940 after he developed an innovative crude oil refining process. Fred C. Koch died in 1967 and his majority interest in the company was split amongst his four sons. In June 1983, after a bitter legal and boardroom battle, the stakes of Frederick R. Koch and William "Bill" Koch were bought out for $1.1 billion and Charles Koch and David Koch became majority owners in the company. Charles owns 42% of the company; trusts for the benefit of Elaine Tettemer Marshall and Elaine's children, Preston Marshall and E. Pierce Marshall Jr., own 16% of the company. The heirs of David Koch, who died on August 23, 2019, own the balance, 42%, of the corporation.
Learn more about Koch Industries
Industry
Founded
1940

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