Director, Mechanical Engineering

The Role

We are looking for a Director, Mechanical Engineering to be Volta's subject matter expert and design authority for mechanical engineering across our global portfolio of AI factories. You will report directly to the Senior Director, Infrastructure Engineering within the Delivery organisation.

You will fully own all mechanical engineering input across the portfolio from Volta's design standards, Reference Design and running projects. You will move easily between technical detail and strategic perspective, weighing engineering decisions against business priorities. As the business scales, you will build and lead the mechanical engineering team.

What You Will Do

› Act as Volta's mechanical subject matter expert and design authority, owning all mechanical engineering input across every AI factory in EMEA and AMER from concept through to commissioning and handover

› Develop, deploy and maintain Volta's mechanical design standards, specifications and basis of design documents for all mechanical systems, making sure they are applied consistently across every project and region

› Provide the mechanical input to Volta's Reference Design for AI factory infrastructure, working with peers in the Design organisation to balance performance, energy and water efficiency, cost, speed of delivery and scalability

› Own Volta's liquid cooling architecture, including facility water systems, technology cooling systems and coolant distribution units, and partner with the CTO and CPO organisations to align it with rack, GPU and thermal requirements so compute turns up consistently across the portfolio

› Support live projects with mechanical expertise from concept through detailed design, construction and commissioning, resolving technical issues quickly so delivery is never held up

› Track the evolution of AI hardware and cooling technology, including rack densities, warmer water operation and emerging cooling methods, and translate it into mechanical standards that keep Volta's AI factories ready for next generation compute

› Lead mechanical design reviews and technical assurance, and act as design authority for any departure from the mechanical standard

› Work in sync with SMEs across the other disciplines, including electrical, controls and structural, so the overall design is optimised for safety, speed of delivery and cost, rather than for mechanical in isolation

› Work with Procurement to standardise specifications for long lead mechanical equipment such as chillers, dry coolers, coolant distribution units, pumps and air handling plant, enabling framework agreements, prefabrication and modular delivery at scale

› Champion safety in design, reliability, maintainability and energy and water efficiency, working with Operations to design for how our facilities will be run

› Embed lessons learned from delivery and operations back into the mechanical standards, so every AI factory builds faster, safer and more efficiently than the last

› Direct the mechanical scope of external design partners, mentor engineers and build out the mechanical engineering team as the pipeline grows

› Provide mechanical engineering status, risk and decision reporting to the Senior Director, Infrastructure Engineering

What You Will Bring

› A degree in mechanical or building services engineering, with chartered or professional engineer status (for example CEng or PE) preferred

› Significant experience in data centre or mission critical mechanical engineering, including senior technical leadership of mechanical design on large scale programmes

› Deep technical expertise in data centre cooling, including chilled water and heat rejection systems, air side design, hydraulic design and cooling control philosophy

› A track record developing and deploying mechanical design standards, reference designs or basis of design documents for a hyperscale, colocation or large scale data centre developer

› Hands on experience designing and delivering high density and liquid cooled environments for AI and HPC workloads, including direct to chip cooling, coolant distribution units and facility water systems, and an understanding of how GPU cluster thermal requirements drive facility design

› Familiarity with the codes and standards that govern data centre mechanical design in Europe and North America, such as ASHRAE guidelines and NFPA standards

› Strong commercial judgement, balancing capex, schedule, reliability and operability in mechanical design decisions

› Confident communication, able to explain complex technical trade offs clearly to technical and non-technical stakeholders, including executives

› A collaborative style that builds trust with peers across partner teams, and the conviction to hold the line on standards

• Competitive salary based on the work you do here, not your previous salary

• Retirement/pension contributions

• Comprehensive health, wellbeing and insurance benefits

• Generous number of vacation days each year

Additional Information