Senior Application Engineer (AVEVA PI)

Sword is a leading provider of business technology solutions within the Energy, Public and Finance Sectors, driving transformational change within our clients.  We use proven technology, specialist teams and domain expertise to build solid technical foundations across platforms, data, and business applications.  We have a passion for using technology to solve business problems, working in partnership with our clients to help in achieving their goals.

About the role:

As a Senior Application Engineer specialising in the AVEVA PI System, you’ll play a key role in supporting and optimising real-time data systems that underpin critical energy infrastructure. Working within a complex and evolving environment, you’ll be responsible for ensuring the reliability, performance, and continuous improvement of operational data platforms used to monitor and manage asset performance across a distributed estate.

This is a hands-on, high-impact role where you’ll collaborate closely with internal teams, external vendors, and client stakeholders. You’ll support system upgrades, troubleshoot issues, and enhance data flows—helping to ensure accurate, real-time insights that drive operational decision-making.

You’ll be part of a collaborative and supportive environment, working alongside specialists across data, infrastructure, and operations. This is an opportunity to deepen your expertise in real-time data systems while contributing to the performance and optimisation of renewable energy assets.

As a Senior Application Engineer, you will:

• Support and maintain real-time data platforms, ensuring the availability, performance, and integrity of systems.
• Troubleshoot and resolve application issues, minimising disruption to business-critical operations.
• Manage and support the configuration and optimisation of PI system components, including data collection, storage, and visualisation.
• Work closely with vendors to manage incidents, upgrades, and ongoing system improvements.
• Support system upgrades and enhancements, including testing and validation in controlled environments.
• Monitor and improve data flows between systems, ensuring accuracy and consistency across platforms.
• Collaborate with stakeholders to understand requirements and translate them into practical system solutions.
• Analyse system performance, identifying opportunities for optimisation and improved efficiency.
• Support integration with other platforms, including asset monitoring and performance systems such as Bazefield.
• Produce clear and maintainable documentation, including system configurations, processes, and procedures.
• Contribute to continuous improvement initiatives, helping to evolve the application landscape in line with business needs.

Requirements

• Extensive experience supporting and maintaining real-time or operational data systems.
• Strong hands-on experience with the AVEVA PI System, including configuration, troubleshooting, and optimisation.
• Experience working within energy, utilities, or similar industrial environments.
• Proven ability to diagnose and resolve complex application and data flow issues.
• Understanding of system integrations, data pipelines, and interoperability across platforms.
• Experience supporting application upgrades and working within testing environments.
• Working knowledge of databases, data structures, and system performance tuning.
• Familiarity with automation or scripting for system support and optimisation.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills.
• Confident communicator, able to work effectively with both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Experience working within Agile or DevOps environments.

It would be great if you also had:

• Experience with renewable energy asset management platforms such as Bazefield.
• Understanding of operational performance metrics, including production and lost production analysis.
• Exposure to cloud-based data platforms or modern data architectures.
• Experience working with third-party vendors and managing external support relationships.

Benefits

At Sword, our core values and culture are based on caring about our people, investing in training and career development, and building inclusive teams where we are all encouraged to contribute to achieve success. We offer comprehensive benefits designed to support your professional development and enhance your overall quality of life. In addition to a Competitive Salary, here's what you can expect as part of our benefits package:

• Personalised Career Development: We create a development plan customised to your goals and aspirations, with a range of learning and development opportunities within a culture that encourages growth.
• Flexible working: Flexible work arrangements to support your work-life balance. We can’t promise to always be able to meet every request, however, are keen to discuss your individual preferences to make it work where we can.
• A Fantastic Benefits Package: This includes generous annual leave allowance, enhanced family friendly benefits, pension scheme, access to private health, well-being, and insurance schemes.

At Sword we are dedicated to fostering a diverse and inclusive workplace and are proud to be an equal opportunities employer, ensuring that all applicants receive fair and equal consideration for employment, regardless of whether they meet every requirement. If you don’t tick all the boxes but feel you have some of the relevant skills and experience we’re looking for, please do consider applying and highlight your transferable skills and experience. We embrace diversity in all its forms, valuing individuals regardless of age, disability, gender identity or reassignment, marital or civil partner status, pregnancy or maternity status, race, colour, nationality, ethnic or national origin, religion or belief, sex, or sexual orientation. Your perspective and potential are important to us.

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