Commercial Solar Technician

Role: Solar Technician, Operations & Maintenance (O&M) Location: Illinois and Wisconsin. Field-based, home-deployed. Ideal home base is the Chicago-to-Rockford-to-Milwaukee corridor.

Company vehicle provided. Reports to: the hiring manager, Director of Operations & Maintenance, who reports to the Chief Operating Officer. Team size: Small and rebuilding -- two technicians and an operations coordinator today, growing to five-plus technicians over the next 12 months.

Why it exists now: the O&M line is behind on a growing site backlog and is being rebuilt to stand on its own.

The Mission

Become the technician the hiring manager can send to a broken site and trust to figure it out: showing up to a site where something is down, diagnosing what is actually wrong, restoring production safely and efficiently, and moving to the next job without needing the answer handed to you.

Performance Objectives

Restore downed C&I, distributed-generation, and light-utility sites to production safely and efficiently, minimizing revenue lost to downtime, measured by dispatch-to-restoration time and repeat-dispatch rate.

Diagnose faults across a mixed inverter fleet spanning multiple OEM platforms, using HMI diagnostics, insulation-resistance testing, DC string isolation, and voltage and current analysis, reaching independent Level 1 troubleshooting within the first 90 days.

Deploy from home as a self-directed operator, out the door between 7:00 and 7:30, running your own day with minimal oversight; reduce unnecessary truck rolls by restoring sites remotely where possible.

Progress from Level 1 to Level 2 technician within 12 months, taking more sites solo as the team scales.

Carry a share of the weekend on-call rotation once the team reaches roughly five technicians, restoring remotely wherever possible.

Fit Traits

Troubleshooting Mind. Signal: "They can start using their own troubleshooting mindset, their own curious mind to find the solution." The hiring manager can teach solar; he cannot teach curiosity.

Self-Starter. Signal: "The guys deploy out of their houses, so they gotta be self-starters," and "If you're still waiting for the reveille bell every morning, this ain't the job for you."

Maturity. Signal: "The majority coming out, I think that would be our number one thing is maturity." This is the filter the hiring manager named first.

Urgency About Downtime. Signal: "When the site's down, you're not making money. That's bad."

Coachable Without Ego. Signal: "Anybody who asks for help, help will be given here."

Why This Role Matters

"If I got two quality techs, that would just dig us out fast and we would start really generating some real growth." The O&M line is in a deliberate rebuild after the hiring manager inherited a team that looked good on paper and did not produce. Every day a site sits down is a day it does not make money, so the person in this seat directly protects revenue and customer trust.

Who You'll Work For

The hiring manager is a Navy veteran, a nuclear electrician who served nine years before moving into wind, then solar. He came up on the tools, not from a corner office, and now runs the company's O&M line with real autonomy. "Anybody who asks for help, help will be given here."

Why Veterans Succeed Here

If you ran advanced electronics or electrical systems in the Navy as an EM, ET, AE, FC, IC, STG, or gas-turbine electrical technician, you already have the core of this job -- standing in front of a down system with pressure on and no one to hand you the answer.

Requirements

- Hands-on electrical or electronic troubleshooting experience. Military equivalent: EM (Electrician's Mate), ET (Electronics Technician), AE (Aviation Electrician's Mate), FC (Fire Controlman), IC (Interior Communications Electrician), STG (Sonar Technician), GS and GSE (Gas Turbine Systems electrical). Heavy solar experience is not required and is not the primary filter.

- Comfort with standard electrical test equipment, specifically a multimeter and a clamp or amp meter; insulation-resistance (megger) testing is learnable on the job.

- Self-directed work habits and personal reliability. Military equivalent: any NCO or senior technician who ran their own maintenance actions without daily supervision.

- Maturity and sound judgment. Military equivalent: most advanced-electronics veterans signed six-year contracts and carry that maturity out with them.

- Valid driver's license and a genuine willingness to accept significant windshield time, with occasional overnight travel to Wisconsin.

- Willingness to learn on the job; training is largely OJT with limited formal instruction.

- Not a fit: rooftop residential installation experience alone, with no troubleshooting or maintenance background.

Benefits

- Base pay is hourly: a floor of $35 per hour for the standard Level 1 hire, moving to $39 or $40 for a candidate the hiring manager is sold on, and up to $45 per hour (possibly a little north of that) for a veteran who already brings genuine solar or strong troubleshooting experience.

- Annualized at a standard 40-hour week, that range runs roughly $72,800 to $93,600 and above. Drive time is paid at the regular wage from the moment you're in the truck.

- Company vehicle is provided; you launch from home.

- On-call is a planned weekend rotation as the team grows, roughly one weekend in five at full staffing, with a stated one-hour minimum payout even for a five-minute remote restore.

- Schedule is Monday through Friday, targeting out the door between 7:00 and 7:30 and home by 5:00, earlier in summer.

- 401(k), medical, dental, vision, and paid time off.