B&V | Hiring Assoc Engineer-Mechanical HVAC & plumbing | Data Center

Role Overview

The Associate Engineer Data Center HVAC & Plumbing will function as an experienced engineering contributor responsible for preparing mechanical deliverables, supporting quality reviews, coordinating across disciplines, and contributing to mission-critical data center projects. The role supports Black & Veatch priorities by advancing execution excellence, safety by design, client-focused solutions, technical quality, innovation, and disciplined delivery across globally integrated project teams.

Key Responsibilities

• Support HVAC and plumbing design activities for greenfield and brownfield data center projects from concept development and basis of design through detailed engineering, construction support, commissioning, and closeout.
• Develop and review HVAC design criteria, cooling-load calculations, psychrometric analysis, ventilation, pressurization, filtration, humidity control, hydronic systems, air distribution, equipment selections, and controls narratives.
• Design and evaluate mission-critical cooling systems, including chilled-water systems, CRAH/CRAC units, air-handling units, direct expansion systems, economization, heat rejection, high-density cooling, and liquid-cooling interfaces where applicable.
• Assess system redundancy, reliability, maintainability, failure scenarios, and concurrent-maintenance requirements in alignment with project availability and resiliency objectives.
• Develop and review plumbing design criteria and systems, including domestic water, sanitary waste and vent, storm drainage, equipment and condensate drainage, emergency fixtures, water heaters, floor drains, and specialty drainage requirements.
• Prepare engineering deliverables and support their review, including drawings, calculations, specifications, equipment schedules, datasheets, sequences of operation, technical evaluations, design reports, and control requirements.
• Coordinate HVAC and plumbing requirements with architectural, structural, electrical, fire protection, controls, civil, process piping, security, telecommunications, BIM, procurement, construction, and commissioning teams.
• Support the mechanical team in design-related decisions and coordinate with clients, internal project teams, and global engineering offices to help resolve design issues, project milestones, deliverable priorities, and open technical items.
• Support design reviews for technical quality, code compliance, energy performance, constructability, maintainability, commissioning readiness, interdisciplinary coordination, and alignment with client standards.
• Support vendor and contractor coordination, including technical bid reviews, equipment evaluations, RFIs, shop-drawing and submittal reviews, field changes, site observations, functional testing, commissioning, and startup support.
• Perform site assessments of existing data center HVAC and plumbing infrastructure, identify capacity, reliability, or maintainability constraints, and develop practical recommendations for improvement or expansion.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelors degree in Mechanical Engineering or a related engineering discipline from a recognized institution.
• Minimum 4 years of relevant HVAC and plumbing design experience, preferably including data centers, mission-critical facilities, semiconductor facilities, advanced manufacturing, power, or other high-availability infrastructure.
• Demonstrated experience contributing to HVAC and plumbing deliverables for complex, multidisciplinary projects and coordinating work across geographically distributed teams.
• Strong knowledge of data center cooling architectures, ventilation, pressurization, filtration, humidity control, hydronic systems, heat rejection, controls, equipment-room ventilation, and electrical-room cooling.
• Strong understanding of plumbing systems, including domestic water, sanitary waste and vent, storm drainage, condensate and equipment drainage, emergency fixtures, plumbing fixtures, and water-heating systems.
• Working knowledge of applicable international and local standards, including ASHRAE standards and guidelines, NFPA, SMACNA, IMC, IPC, and relevant energy and building codes.
• Experience preparing and reviewing design criteria, calculations, drawings, specifications, schedules, datasheets, technical evaluations, sequences of operation, and design reports.
• Strong fundamentals in thermodynamics, fluid mechanics, heat transfer, psychrometrics, ductwork, piping, controls, and mechanical equipment selection.
• Hands-on experience with HVAC load-calculation and analysis software such as HAP, ELITE, TRACE, IES VE, or equivalent tools.
• Proficiency in interdisciplinary coordination and familiarity with BIM-based delivery using Revit, Navisworks, or equivalent platforms.
• Strong written and verbal communication, collaboration, problem-solving, and technical coordination skills in a fast-paced global delivery environment.

Preferred Qualifications

• Professional Engineer registration, Chartered Engineer status, or an equivalent professional certification.
• Experience with hyperscale, colocation, enterprise, modular, or edge data center projects.
• Familiarity with Uptime Institute tier concepts, TIA-942, ASHRAE Thermal Guidelines for Data Processing Environments, and client-specific mission-critical design standards.
• Experience with high-density computing, direct-to-chip liquid cooling, immersion-cooling support systems, CFD modeling, airflow simulation, energy modeling, or water- and energy-efficiency analysis.
• Experience coordinating with major data center mechanical equipment vendors and evaluating vendor-specific technical inputs during design and procurement support.
• Experience with EPC, design-build, modular/off-site fabrication, FEL/FEED, engineering-services delivery models, and global project delivery across multiple time zones.