Mechanical Commissioning Project Engineer

OpenAI; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 140,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

OpenAI is seeking a Mechanical Commissioning Project Engineer in San Francisco to lead planning, readiness, and test execution for critical mechanical systems. You will coordinate with design, vendors, and field teams to ensure startup, balancing, and controls verification support reliable facility performance.

You will oversee inspection strategy, vendor interfaces, and discipline-level review of results, maintaining dashboards and ensuring complete turnover documentation for operations.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of mechanical commissioning/related experience on complex infrastructure projects.
• Strong knowledge of mechanical startup, testing, controls interfaces, cooling/ventilation and hydronic systems.
• Experience reviewing commissioning specs, checklists, test scripts and reports.
• Ability to coordinate field execution across contractors, vendors and leadership.
• Strong judgment on readiness, safety, sequencing, prerequisites, risk escalation.
• Comfort working in construction environments with evolving schedules and multiple fronts.
• Clear technical writing and ability to maintain logs, test evidence and decisions.
• Ability to be onsite during critical installation, startup, checkout and testing.

Responsibilities

• Develop and maintain the mechanical commissioning scope, readiness criteria, inspection strategy, and test execution plan.
• Coordinate QA/QC inspections with contractors and vendors, including deficiency tracking and closeout.
• Own commissioning procedure development, equipment startup, functional testing and controls verification.
• Coordinate with vendors on acceptance requirements, startup support, and test documentation.
• Support readiness and execution for cooling, ventilation, hydronic, pumping and controls systems.
• Lead review of test results, deficiencies, corrective actions, retests and trend logs.
• Maintain commissioning dashboards and status inputs for risk, resources and readiness.
• Collaborate with Electrical commissioning lead on cross-discipline dependencies and integrated testing.
• Support turnover with complete documentation, as-built evidence and test records.

Skills

Mechanical commissioning

Field engineering

Startup

Testing

Balancing coordination

Controls verification

Documentation/logs

Written communication

On-site presence

Safety readiness

Job description

About the Role

The Mechanical Commissioning Project Engineer owns mechanical commissioning planning, readiness, quality coordination, and test execution oversight for the project. This role ensures mechanical systems are installed, inspected, started, balanced, controlled, and tested in a way that supports reliable integrated facility performance.

Reports to the Commissioning Project Lead and partners closely with mechanical contractors, equipment vendors, design/engineering teams, the electrical commissioning lead, controls stakeholders, and vendor field/test engineers.

Key Responsibilities

• Develop and maintain the mechanical commissioning scope, readiness criteria, inspection strategy, and discipline test execution plan.
• Review mechanical design packages, specifications, submittals, method statements, controls narratives, sequence assumptions, and testing requirements for commissionability and risk.
• Coordinate mechanical QA/QC inspections with contractors and vendor field/test engineers, including installation checks, pre-functional readiness, deficiency capture, and closeout tracking.
• Own mechanical commissioning procedure development and review, including equipment startup, functional testing, controls verification, balancing prerequisites, failure mode validation, and integrated systems testing inputs.
• Coordinate with equipment vendors on factory/site acceptance requirements, startup support, test prerequisites, documentation packages, and vendor participation during critical tests.
• Support readiness and execution for cooling, ventilation, hydronic, pumping, heat rejection, controls, and other project-specific mechanical systems.
• Lead discipline-level review of mechanical test results, deficiencies, corrective actions, retest requirements, trend logs, and acceptance evidence.
• Maintain mechanical commissioning dashboards and status inputs for the Commissioning Project Lead, including risk items, resource needs, test readiness, and issue aging.
• Partner with the Electrical Commissioning Lead on cross-discipline dependencies, including power availability, controls integration, emergency modes, heat load scenarios, and integrated testing sequences.
• Support turnover by confirming mechanical documentation, as-built evidence, test records, trend data, and outstanding issue disposition are complete and usable by operations.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of mechanical commissioning, mechanical construction, field engineering, startup, testing, balancing coordination, controls verification, or owner representative experience on complex technical infrastructure projects.
• Strong knowledge of mechanical system startup, functional performance testing, controls interfaces, cooling or ventilation systems, hydronic systems, and equipment/vendor startup workflows as applicable to the project scope.
• Experience reviewing commissioning specifications, inspection checklists, functional test scripts, vendor startup procedures, test reports, and trend evidence.
• Ability to coordinate field execution across contractors, equipment vendors, QA/QC teams, commissioning partners, and project leadership.
• Strong practical judgment around readiness, safety, sequencing, test prerequisites, performance validation, and risk escalation.
• Comfort working in construction environments with evolving schedules and multiple parallel work fronts.
• Clear technical writing skills and discipline in maintaining logs, test evidence, issue records, and decision history.
• Ability to be present at the project site during critical mechanical installation, startup, controls checkout, functional testing, and integrated testing windows.

Preferred Skills

• Owner-side or commissioning agent experience on mission-critical, industrial, manufacturing, data center, or other high-reliability facilities.
• Professional engineering, commissioning, controls, balancing, or equivalent field qualification.
• Experience with integrated systems testing and coordination between mechanical, electrical, controls, and operations teams.
• Familiarity with digital issue tracking, commissioning management platforms, schedule tools, trend tools, and field reporting workflows.
• PE license
• Commissioning certification eg. QCxP, CxA, BCxP, CCP

About OpenAI

OpenAI is an AI research and deployment company dedicated to ensuring that general-purpose artificial intelligence benefits all of humanity. We push the boundaries of the capabilities of AI systems and seek to safely deploy them to the world through our products. AI is an extremely powerful tool that must be created with safety and human needs at its core, and to achieve our mission, we must encompass and value the many different perspectives, voices, and experiences that form the full spectrum of humanity.

We are an equal opportunity employer, and we do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, age, veteran status, disability, genetic information, or other applicable legally protected characteristic.

For additional information, please see OpenAI’s affirmative action and equal employment opportunity policy statement.

Background checks for applicants will be administered in accordance with applicable law, and qualified applicants with arrest or conviction records will be considered for employment consistent with those laws, including the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance for Employers, and the California Fair Chance Act, for US-based candidates. For unincorporated Los Angeles County workers: we reasonably believe that criminal history may have a direct, adverse and negative relationship with the following job duties, potentially resulting in the withdrawal of a conditional offer of employment: protect computer hardware entrusted to you from theft, loss or damage; return all computer hardware in your possession (including the data contained therein) upon termination of employment or end of assignment; and maintain the confidentiality of proprietary, confidential, and non-public information. In addition, job duties require access to secure and protected information technology systems and related data security obligations.

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