Controls Engineer, Data Center Engineering
Role details
Job location
Tech stack
Job description
The Data Center Engineering team is looking for a Controls Engineer with depth in both electrical and mechanical control systems. The successful candidate will design, implement, and optimize automation and control systems across the full spectrum of data center infrastructure - spanning electrical power, mechanical systems, and Apple's Data Center Information System (DCIS), an integrated monitoring platform built on MQTT and Inductive Automation's Ignition. This role spans the complete project lifecycle - design, construction administration, commissioning, and ongoing operational improvement - with a strong emphasis on specification authorship and cross-domain technical leadership.
Requirements
- Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Systems Engineering, Controls Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent job-related experience.
- 5+ years of engineering experience with control systems in data centers or mission-critical environments for both electrical power and mechanical/HVAC systems
- Understanding of controls for high-availability electrical systems (such as EPMS and MV PDCS) and mechanical systems (such as chilled water plants and BAS infrastructure)
- Experience programming DDC/PLC controllers and redlining controls drawings.
- Proficiency in IEC 61131-3 programming languages such as Structured Text (ST), Ladder Diagram (LD), Function Block Diagram (FBD), and Instruction List (IL)
Preferred Qualifications
- 8+ years of experience with data center control systems, with demonstrated involvement across design, construction, and commissioning phases for both electrical and mechanical control scope.
- Proven experience authoring and maintaining technical control system specifications, including the ability to develop specifications and Sequences of Operations (SOO) from scratch for new systems or scopes; experience with MV PDCS specifications strongly preferred.
- Authored and maintained comprehensive control system specifications from the ground up for greenfield projects or new scopes of work, including writing Sequences of Operations (SOO).
- Demonstrated track record of reducing RFIs and change orders through high-quality specification authorship, with direct experience writing or revising controls specifications based on lessons learned from construction and vendor feedback.
- Practical knowledge of electrical and mechanical control platforms, including: Schneider Electric Modicon M580; Siemens Desigo / Simatic S7; Johnson Controls Metasys; Tridium Niagara (JACE); SEL RTAC; and generator controllers such as Woodward easYgen or DEIF AGC.
- Experience with field communication protocols including BACnet, Modbus, OPC UA, and IEC 61850 (MMS/GOOSE), and integration of those systems into facility management and monitoring platforms.
- Experience with data center information system stacks including: MQTT as the messaging and telemetry transport layer; Inductive Automation's Ignition as the unified SCADA/HMI and data aggregation platform; and cloud analytics integration - delivering a cohesive operational view across electrical and mechanical domains.
- Familiarity with IEC 61499 event-driven Function Block architecture and its design principles for distributed control; Python scripting for data analysis or system integration; experience with Fault Detection and Diagnostics (FDD), data trending, and alarming; and familiarity with software revision control tools (GitHub, GitLab).
- Proficiency with AI tools to enhance daily work - including AI-assisted authoring for specifications and sequences of operations, AI coding assistants for control logic and Python development, and applied understanding of how AI/ML-driven analytics can be layered over operational data platforms (such as DCIS/MQTT) to enable predictive fault detection, anomaly detection, and performance optimization.