Principal Delivery Engineer (Mechanical)

Global Switch; Amsterdam; Hybrid; EUR 150,000 - 190,000; Full time

Job summary

Global Switch in Amsterdam, Netherlands, is seeking a Principal Delivery Engineer to shape and deliver the technical vision for capital projects across multiple campuses. You will provide expert technical leadership, coordinate across sites, and ensure design solutions are robust, compliant, and aligned with operational needs.

You will guide multidisciplinary teams, drive standards, governance, and best practice, and collaborate with Engineering Managers, Directors, and site operations to

Qualifications

• Advanced knowledge of data centre systems and engineering principles.
• Provide expert advice and hands-on support to project and site teams.
• Prioritise tasks and manage workloads efficiently under leadership.
• Embed sustainability into project delivery.
• Lead end-to-end technical design across external partners.
• Support planning and budgeting of capital projects.
• Evaluate technical risks and mitigations.

Responsibilities

• Define comprehensive technical specifications and project briefs, ensuring clarity and alignment with objectives and standards.
• Oversee integration of multidisciplinary design elements to meet codes and standards.
• Assess design proposals for robustness, scalability, and cost efficiency; identify resilience improvements.
• Detect and resolve infrastructure deficiencies; implement corrective actions.
• Evaluate critical systems to identify vulnerabilities and mitigate failures.
• Maintain risk registers and manage design-related risks throughout the lifecycle.
• Develop and implement contingency strategies for delays; ensure timely recovery.
• Coordinate with external partners to ensure innovative, compliant solutions.
• Analyze design options for long-term maintenance implications to inform decisions.

Skills

Data centre engineering

Technical leadership

Cross-site delivery

Risk assessment

Job description

About the Role

As Principal Delivery Engineer, you play a critical role in shaping and delivering the technical vision for Global Switch’s capital projects, ensuring that engineering solutions are robust, innovative, and fully aligned with both business objectives and the highest industry standards. This role is responsible for providing expert technical leadership, oversight, and coordination across all stages of engineering design and delivery, spanning multiple campuses and regions. Collaboration is central to this position as the Principal Delivery Engineer works alongside the Engineering Manager, Engineering Director, and site-based technical operations teams, as well as project engineers across other campuses, to share lessons learned, maintain design consistency, and provide support as needed. This is a technically demanding and globally connected role, suited to an experienced engineering professional who combines design rigour with delivery focus. The Principal Delivery Engineer is committed to enabling infrastructure excellence through collaboration, quality assurance, and engineering leadership, while modelling the organisation’s core values of Precision, People, Impact, and Evolution.

Key Responsibilities:

• Define comprehensive technical specifications and project briefs, ensuring all requirements are clear, measurable, and aligned with both business objectives and regulatory standards.

• Oversee the integration of multidisciplinary design elements, ensuring every aspect meets or exceeds local, national, and international codes and standards, and proactively address compliance gaps.

• Critically assess design proposals for robustness, scalability, and cost efficiency, identifying opportunities to enhance resilience and reduce lifecycle costs.

• Proactively detect, document, and resolve infrastructure deficiencies, implementing corrective actions to maintain system integrity and reliability.

• Perform rigorous, impartial evaluations of critical systems, identifying vulnerabilities and implementing strategies to eliminate or mitigate single points of failure.

• Maintain comprehensive risk registers, ensuring all design-related risks are clearly recorded, regularly reviewed, and effectively managed throughout the project lifecycle.

• Develop and execute robust contingency strategies to address project delays, ensuring timely recovery and minimal impact on overall delivery.

• Proactively detect, document, and resolve infrastructure deficiencies, implementing corrective actions to maintain system integrity and reliability.

• Conduct thorough technical and financial analyses of design options, considering long-term operational and maintenance implications to inform optimal decision-making.

About you

You’re a highly experienced engineering professional with a strong technical foundation and a proven track record of delivering complex, mission-critical infrastructure projects across multiple sites or regions. You combine deep expertise in data centre engineering with a delivery-focused mindset, ensuring design solutions are robust, compliant, and aligned to both operational needs and long-term business objectives. You thrive in technically demanding environments where quality, reliability, and resilience are non-negotiable. Acting as a trusted technical authority, you’re confident guiding multidisciplinary teams, challenging design assumptions, and driving consistency through standards, governance, and best practice. Collaborative by nature, you work seamlessly with Engineering Managers, Directors, project engineers, and site operations teams to share knowledge, resolve issues, and continuously improve outcomes.

Key Requirements:

• Possess advanced knowledge of data centre systems, applying engineering principles to design and deliver high-performance, resilient infrastructure.

• Provide expert advice and hands-on support to project and site teams, ensuring engineering solutions are practical, innovative, and aligned with operational needs.

• Prioritise tasks and manage workloads efficiently, ensuring deadlines are met and resources are used optimally under the guidance of leadership.

• Ensure all engineering activities reflect the organisation’s sustainability commitments, embedding environmental considerations into every stage of project delivery.

• Lead the end-to-end technical design process, coordinating with external partners to ensure solutions are innovative, compliant, and aligned with project goals.

• Support the planning and budgeting of capital projects, ensuring financial and resource plans are robust.

• Expertly evaluate technical risks, developing and implementing effective mitigation strategies to safeguard system reliability.

About Global Switch

You might not know it, but you use a data centre like Global Switch every day. Whether you're browsing the web, streaming, playing a game, or simply making a purchase, you are relying on data centres around the world. Global Switch is a trusted name in the industry, with over 20 years of experience and a commitment to long-term partnerships and sustainability. We value excellence and teamwork, and we always strive to deliver the best customer service and satisfaction. We are a team of skilled and passionate professionals, proud of who we are and what we do. Joining us means becoming part of a team that values learning and growth. As an equal-opportunity employer, Global Switch is committed to providing a working culture that values diversity and inclusion and is committed to making reasonable adjustments to provide a barrier-free recruitment process and working environment.