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Lead Mechanical Engineer - Mission Critical Data Centers - Remote

Client

A high-growth, owner-operator data center developer with an ambitious mission to deploy gigawatt-scale AI compute infrastructure across North America and beyond. The firm acquires power, designs, builds, and operates its own data centers, with a fully integrated team spanning hardware, software, and engineering. They are moving at exceptional speed and scale, with a pipeline targeting tens of gigawatts of capacity this decade.

Job Role

A senior leadership opportunity to define and own the mechanical cooling strategy across an entire portfolio of hyperscale, AI-optimised data centers. You'll set the basis of design, master specifications, and standard drawings for every cooling system in the portfolio, make critical architectural decisions on coolant chemistry, chiller topology, and free cooling strategies, and build out the mechanical engineering team from the ground up. This is an owner-side role with full end-to-end accountability, from chip-level thermal interfaces through to heat rejection plant, across multiple concurrent programmes at unprecedented scale.

Requirements

- Define and own the mechanical cooling basis of design, master specs, standard drawings, and sequences of operation across the full portfolio

- Drive architectural decisions on coolant chemistry, chiller topology (air- vs. water-cooled centrifugal), CDU elimination, medium-voltage chiller integration, and free cooling to achieve best-in-class PUE and WUE

- Define modular, prefabricated mechanical assemblies (containment cooling units, chiller skids, pump packages, piping modules) engineered for rapid deployment with minimal field interfaces

- Own mechanical design delivery across multiple concurrent programmes from concept through IFC, enforcing quality at each milestone

- Direct and coordinate external MEP consultants throughout the full design lifecycle

- Build and manage the internal mechanical engineering team

- Hold chiller, pump, and coolant vendors accountable on lead time, quality, and performance

Qualifications

- Proven ownership of mechanical cooling design for hyperscale or high-performance data centers, from basis of design through commissioning

- Deep expertise in chilled water systems, air- and water-cooled chillers, direct liquid cooling, and heat rejection plant design at high rack densities (75-150+ kW/rack)

- Demonstrated experience building and leading a mechanical engineering team and directing external MEP consultants

- Track record of developing and enforcing design standards and master specs across a multi-site portfolio

- Owner/developer-side experience with direct accountability for system performance

- PE licence or Chartered Engineer preferred; CFD proficiency (6SigmaET, Ansys Icepak, Flotherm) and Revit/BIM a plus

- Familiarity with medium-voltage and 800VDC chiller applications and ASHRAE TC 9.9 a plus