Senior Manager, Mechanical Design - Data Centres
Location: Singapore (APAC travel)
Employment type: Full time
About the role
Lead the mechanical engineering design for a growing APAC data centre portfolio across the full project lifecycle, from due diligence and concept through detailed design, construction, commissioning and operations. Act as owner-side mechanical design authority, set the mechanical basis of design, govern external design consultants and ensure as-built performance meets design intent.
Key responsibilities
- Own mechanical basis of design for chilled water plants, CRAC/CRAH and fan wall units, direct liquid cooling and CDUs, heat rejection, ventilation and mechanical plant.
- Support site due diligence and selection, assessing cooling feasibility, water availability, climate constraints and district cooling opportunities.
- Lead and govern external mechanical design consultants at concept, schematic, detailed design and IFC stages to protect design quality, redundancy and cost.
- Define cooling architecture and redundancy strategy (N+1, 2N, concurrently maintainable) to satisfy Uptime Tier III / Tier IV targets and customer SLAs, including high-density and AI-ready deployments.
- Produce and review mechanical calculations and studies: cooling load, hydraulic and airflow modelling, CFD reviews, PUE / WUE energy modelling and thermal storage sizing.
- Drive value engineering across mechanical scope to optimise capital cost, PUE, WUE and constructability while maintaining resilience.
- Set and enforce BIM standards for mechanical discipline, coordinate multi-discipline models and lead design reviews with electrical, civil, structural, controls and operations teams.
- Interface with construction and commissioning to close design queries, review shop drawings and equipment submittals, witness factory and integrated systems testing, and manage site-driven design changes.
- Support operations post-handover with seasonal tuning, capacity assessments, performance root cause analysis and retrofit design to maintain design PUE.
- Ensure compliance with Singapore and regional codes and standards and track consultant performance, programme and budget.
Minimum qualifications
- Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering or related discipline.
- Professional registration (PEB Singapore, CEng, CIBSE, HKIE or equivalent).
- Minimum 10 years mechanical engineering experience spanning design, consulting and construction, with demonstrable data centre or mission-critical facility experience.
- Deep knowledge of data centre cooling systems: chilled water, CRAC/CRAH, fan walls, liquid cooling, cooling towers / dry coolers and thermal storage.
- Proven experience delivering or governing mechanical design to Uptime Institute Tier III / Tier IV standards; Uptime ATD advantageous.
- Hands-on experience with cooling load calculations, hydraulic and airflow analysis and PUE / WUE modelling.
- Experience designing for high-density and AI compute (liquid-to-chip, rear-door heat exchangers) is a strong advantage.
- Strong BIM skills and multi-discipline coordination experience.
- Excellent communication skills in English and willingness to travel across APAC.
What we offer
- Owner-side design leadership on a fast-scaling APAC data centre platform.
- Opportunity to shape cooling and sustainability standards across multiple markets.
- Cross-border career growth and work with industry experts in mission-critical infrastructure.
- Inclusive, agile culture that values ideas and technical leadership.
