Mechanical Engineer

Regardless of level, the primary responsibilities of mechanical engineers are:

  1. Conduct building science research with an emphasis on formulation of questions to inform product design in the mid to long term
  2. Work with the data science/data engineering folks to adapt building science approaches and models to data-driven approaches backed by a modern data pipeline
  3. With the marketing and content folks, translate science insights into effective context-aware end-user education
  4. Ensure that recommendations created using our tools are technically sound and will speed building decarbonization in existing buildings
  5. Incorporate climate justice into building science practice

Levels:

  • Principal Mechanical Engineer (Senior)
  • Mechanical Engineer

Please note:

  • Engineers (all levels) are expected to clearly articulate their scope of accountability in their work plans.
  • Principal engineers will generally take leadership roles in making meaningful directional decisions.
  • Wearing multiple hats will be necessary. Data quality assurance and scientific analysis may make up a significant portion of the workload. Engineers may also interface with customers in a support or leadership role and should be prepared to translate customer requests into potential software features.

Skills & Competencies

All roles require our shared competencies for “managers of one”.

In addition:

  • Open-minded Pragmatist
    • Sound judgment on what analysis frameworks and technologies are constructive to leverage in order to meet deeper decarbonization goals and which ones are necessary to cast aside.
    • A deep enough appreciation of complexity in order to most effectively identify sufficiently simplified decarbonization approaches.
  • Systems Thinker
    • An understanding of the interconnections between building infrastructure elements as well as marketplace participants that impact how this infrastructure is maintained and replaced.
    • An understanding of how the behavior of any system follows from its design and therefore why realizing different behavior requires system redesign.
  • Decarbonization Mechanics
    • Deep familiarity with the real world performance of HVAC, building envelopes and building operations that impact energy use and carbon emissions.
    • Appreciation for the relative strengths of different decarbonization technologies in different applications.
  • Technical Polyglot
    • Communication in the languages of building science, data science, software engineering and non-technical language to share information with and learn from a diverse group of collaborators.
    • An ability to contribute to software development by reviewing and potentially writing code for data analysis and calculation methodologies.
  • 360-degree leadership
    • Comfortable leading others to solutions
    • Comfortable asking for and giving help

Requirements

  1. Minimum 5 years or 10 years (Principal) of experience scoping, analyzing and/or commissioning retrofit upgrades in existing multifamily and commercial buildings including:

    1. Benchmarking
    2. Energy auditing and retro-commissioning
    3. Decarbonization feasibility studies
    4. Retrofit project implementation services
    5. Building systems data analysis

  2. 1-5 years experience leading or contributing to building science research projects and/or technical guideline development around building performance to support policymakers and program administrators.

  3. Proficiency with some programming language used for software development or data analysis, and a willingness to learn new languages. Examples include: SQL, R, PHP, Python.