Mechanical Technical Director - Mission Critical Data Centres

About the role

GHD is looking for an experienced Mechanical Technical Director to join its Global Data Centre Design Team (Mission Critical), based in its UAE offices. This is a senior leadership role for an accomplished engineer with extensive experience designing, leading and delivering hyperscale, AI and mission-critical data centre facilities. The director provides technical leadership across a portfolio of complex projects, advises clients, supports business development and helps shape the future direction of mechanical engineering in the global data centre practice.

Key responsibilities

• Provide technical leadership and governance across multiple mission critical and data centre projects globally, defining mechanical engineering strategies for hyperscale, colocation, enterprise and AI-driven data centres.
• Lead the development and review of cooling architectures, including chilled water systems, liquid cooling, direct-to-chip cooling, CDUs, heat rejection systems and high-density thermal management.
• Drive technical excellence through peer reviews, design assurance, engineering standards, best practices and quality procedures.
• Act as senior technical authority, advise clients, operators, contractors and technology providers, and lead workshops, value engineering, feasibility studies, master planning and technical due diligence.
• Support project teams in managing technical risks, programmes, budgets and quality, and help secure new opportunities through pursuits, proposals, bids and technical presentations.
• Mentor Lead Engineers and other team members, and collaborate with regional and global leadership on growth strategies.

Required profile

• Bachelor's degree in Mechanical or Building Services Engineering; chartered engineer status (CEng, PE, RPEQ or equivalent) preferred.
• Minimum 15 years of relevant engineering experience, including significant experience in mission critical and data centre environments.
• Proven track record leading the design and delivery of hyperscale, colocation, enterprise and AI-focused data centre facilities.
• Experience leading multidisciplinary teams on international projects and in geographically distributed delivery environments.
• Demonstrated experience in technical reviews, design assurance, engineering governance and quality management.
• Strong commercial awareness, leadership, communication, stakeholder management and presentation skills.

Required skills

• Knowledge of data centre cooling systems: chilled water plants, CRAH/CRAC, liquid cooling, CDUs, cooling towers, dry coolers and control strategies.
• Understanding of resilience and redundancy (N+1, 2N, concurrent maintainability) and mechanical-electrical integration, BMS, commissioning and integrated systems testing.
• Familiarity with CFD modelling, thermal and energy modelling, digital engineering and BIM.
• Uptime Institute Accredited Tier Designer (ATD) certification highly desirable; experience with hyperscale and AI cooling strategies highly desirable.

The role is based in the office three days per week.