Senior Principal Design Engineer

Senior Principal Data Centre Design Engineer

Location: United Kingdom (Hybrid)

Employment Type: Full-Time

Key Responsibilities

Design Governance & Technical Leadership

• Own, develop, and continuously improve our client's data centre reference architecture and technical standards
• Lead technical review, challenge, and approval of all externally produced designs
• Ensure designs align with HPC performance requirements, resilience targets, heat-reuse objectives, and operational needs
• Chair technical design reviews, stage-gate approvals, and engineering risk workshops
• Act as the ultimate technical authority for design decisions across projects

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Mechanical & Electrical Design Leadership

• Provide direct technical oversight across all MEP disciplines
• Lead design decisions relating to HV and LV electrical systems
• Redundant power architectures UPS systems Standby generation High-density cooling systems
• Collaborate with engineering teams to continuously improve reference architectures for HPC and heat recovery applications.
• Define and govern heat export interfaces and integration with thermal networks.
• Ensure designs are efficient, safe, maintainable, and operable throughout the asset lifecycle

External Design & Build Partner Management

• Translate business strategy and technical standards into Employer's Requirements and design briefs
• Work closely with architects, MEP consultants, and Design & Build contractors to resolve complex design challenges
• Review RFIs, technical submissions, deviations, and proposed design changes
• Ensure delivered solutions remain aligned with approved standards and project objectives

Construction, Commissioning & Handover

• Support construction and commissioning teams with timely technical decision-making
• Resolve design-related site issues and coordination clashes
• Define commissioning strategies, acceptance criteria, and performance testing requirements
• Ensure full technical compliance at handover, including complete and accurate as-built documentation

Operational & Asset Performance Alignment

• Ensure designs support reliable, cost-effective, long-term operations
• Capture operational lessons learned and integrate them into future design standards
• Support investigations into operational performance issues through detailed engineering analysis

Strategic Technical Development

• Contribute to the long-term technology roadmap for HPC and heat-reuse data centres
• Assess emerging technologies that improve efficiency, resilience, scalability, and sustainability
• Drive standardisation to enable repeatable deployment across a rapidly expanding portfolio

Stakeholder Engagement

• Communicate complex technical matters clearly to both technical and non-technical audiences
• Provide concise engineering insight to senior leadership, investors, partners, and project stakeholders
• Support technical inputs into business cases, investment papers, and strategic decision-making

Essential Experience & Qualifications

• 8–12+ years of experience in data centre, mission-critical, or complex infrastructure design
• Strong mechanical and electrical engineering capability
• Proven experience acting as a technical authority over third-party design organisations
• Demonstrated track record delivering complex engineering projects from concept through operation
• Experience with: High Performance Computing (HPC) environments
• High-density cooling technologies
• Resilient power systems
• Mission-critical infrastructure
• Strong understanding of Design & Build delivery models.
• Hands-on engineering mindset with the ability to engage at detailed design level when required.
• Excellent stakeholder management and communication skills.
• Degree in Mechanical, Electrical, or Building Services Engineering.
• Comfortable operating in a fast-paced, entrepreneurial growth environment.

Desirable:

• Chartered Engineer status.
• Experience within large-scale infrastructure construction and operations.
• Familiarity with project finance and infrastructure investment structures.
• Experience working within a private equity, infrastructure fund, or investor-backed business.