Overview

Working at NREL

The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), located at the foothills of the Rocky Mountains in Golden, Colorado is the nation's primary laboratory for research and development of renewable energy and energy efficiency technologies.

 

From day one at NREL, you’ll connect with coworkers driven by the same mission to save the planet. By joining an organization that values a supportive, inclusive, and flexible work environment, you’ll have the opportunity to engage through our eight employee resource groups, numerous employee-driven clubs, and learning and professional development classes.

 

NREL supports inclusive, diverse, and unbiased hiring practices that promote creativity and innovation. By collaborating with organizations that focus on diverse talent pools, reaching out to underrepresented demographics, and providing an inclusive application and interview process, our Talent Acquisition team aims to hear all voices equally. We strive to attract a highly diverse workforce and create a culture where every employee feels welcomed and respected and they can be their authentic selves.

 

Our planet needs us! Learn about NREL’s critical objectives, and see how NREL is focused on saving the planet.

 

Note: Research suggests that potential job seekers may self-select out of opportunities if they don't meet 100% of the job requirements. We encourage anyone who is interested in this opportunity to apply. We seek dedicated people who believe they have the skills and ambition to succeed at NREL to apply for this role.

 

Job Description

The NREL Communications Office has an opening a Project Lead who will help amplify important capabilities, research, and outcomes related to NREL’s advanced computing.

 

This Communications Professional III-level position requires the ability to quickly learn and handle a variety of tasks—whether that’s working with leadership to develop targeted messaging, creating and coordinating with a designer on graphics for a PowerPoint deck, or making a routine web content update—and manage multiple projects concurrently with limited supervision. This role serves as a primary contact for our Computational Science center director, Advanced Computing laboratory program manager, other leadership team members, researchers, and technical leads. You will guide project teams to establish objectives and create strategic communication plans for high-performance computing (HPC), hybrid computing, cloud computing, visualization, and other crosscutting computationally-heavy analysis and modeling.

 

This position may be a great match if:

  • You enjoy working in partnership with customers to confirm objectives. You build trust and propose creative and strategic communications solutions and plans, and collaborate with and guide NREL advanced computing leadership and computational scientists in communications strategy and deliverables
  • You are organized, flexible, and thrive on leading many projects at once. You take a hands-on approach to details and successfully lead matrixed teams to implement deliverables in line with budgets and agreements
  • You have experience, education, or other knowledge in advanced computing, computational science, applied mathematics, or a related field/topic
  • You have excellent interpersonal, oral, and written communications skills. You’re comfortable creating the first draft of a fact sheet outline or presentation, as well as enjoy providing edits and advice to polish leadership or research documents or slides.

 

Delivering results calls for self-motivation, leadership, and comfort managing multiple projects in parallel—working with NREL Communications Office experts, including writers, technical editors, multimedia specialists, graphic designers, and digital strategists. Successful candidates will have exemplary attention to detail and quality, knowledge of traditional and digital communication standards and content best practices, a love of continuous learning, a collaborative workstyle that embraces inclusion of diverse perspectives, openness to feedback (giving and receiving) and healthy debate, and cheerful tolerance for inevitable unplanned or quick-turnaround requests.

 

Primary job functions include:

  • Serve as primary communications contact for NREL Computational Science and Advanced Computing leadership, technical leads, and researchers
  • Partner with clients to create communications campaigns by developing internal and external content and channel strategies that may include producing newsletters, articles, videos, graphics, social media posts, fact sheets, web content, proposals, and presentations
  • Create and deliver detailed communications project plans with budgets and timelines. Manage projects independently under general direction, including team member assignments, task dependencies, regular status updates to clients, and content reviews and approvals. Measure accomplishments and report on results
  • Consult with office leaders and functional experts to develop best approaches and align resources
  • Communicate science, including reviewing complex technical information from researchers and technical leads and t ensuring content is written in plain language for a variety of target audiences and outlets
  • Collaborate, solve problems, inform managers, and manage projects through documentation and presentations in Microsoft Teams, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Adobe Acrobat.

 

With your application, please include a cover letter describing why you’re interested in this position, highlighting your communications project management, writing, and/or advanced computing content experience.

 

About NREL and the Communications Office 
The NREL Communications Office is comprised of communications experts in a variety of disciplines focused on raising awareness about the lab and DOE (and other partner) programs and telling the stories of our science. This position resides in the Communications Office’s Science and Technology Communications Group, which supports and represents NREL’s wide-ranging research areas. 

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Basic Qualifications

Relevant Bachelor's Degree and 5 or more years of experience or equivalent relevant education/experience. Or, relevant Master's Degree and 3 or more years of experience or equivalent relevant education/experience. Or, relevant PhD or equivalent relevant education/experience. Or, relevant JD or equivalent relevant education/experience. Complete understanding and wide application of technical principles, theories and concepts in the field. General knowledge of other related disciplines. Considerable knowledge of laws, regulations, principles, procedures and practices related to specific field. Strong leadership, project management and problem solving skills. Ability to use various computer software programs.

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Additional Required Qualifications

  • Strong project management skills including problem solving; attention to detail, quality, and deadlines; and adhering to budgets and review protocol
  • Experience with science/technical communications and translating complex subject matter for general audiences
  • Demonstrated success in implementing a range of traditional and digital communications
  • Strong writing, editing, and presentation skills
  • Collaborative team- and customer service-oriented workstyle
  • Nimbleness needed to succeed in a fast-paced communications agency-like setting
  • Ability to react positively to rapidly changing circumstances.

 

 

Preferred Qualifications

  • Familiarity with applied mathematics, computational science, or advanced computing, especially related to renewable energy and/or energy efficiency 
  • Familiarity with communications support for conferences and events (PowerPoint presentations, and web conferencing) 
  • Experience with writing basic web content and working in content management systems.
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