Mechanical Design Engineer

American Chillers LLC; Columbia (SC); On-site; USD 80,000 - 95,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

401(k) with company match

Paid time off

Paid holidays

Job summary

American Chillers designs and manufactures industrial process chillers and cooling systems for demanding applications. You will own the mechanical design of chillers, designing frames, enclosures, sheet metal, piping, and component packaging, with 3D CAD in Inventor and AutoCAD.

This design-first role focuses on building production-ready designs, supporting sales on non-standard requests, and developing configurable master models for rapid variant creation, with on-site work in Columbia, SC.

Qualifications

• 3–7 years of mechanical design experience on equipment or engineered products.
• Strong 3D parametric CAD skills, preferably Autodesk Inventor; solid SolidWorks competence welcomed.
• Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering; equivalent hands-on design experience considered.
• Solid engineering fundamentals: thermodynamics, heat transfer, fluid flow, and basic structural analysis.
• Clean drawing discipline with tolerancing and accurate BOMs; revision control.
• On-site in the Columbia, SC area; experience on shop floor is valued.

Responsibilities

• Design chillers in 3D, including frames, bases, enclosures, sheet-metal panels, and assemblies.
• Route refrigerant circuits and process-water piping with serviceability in mind.
• Release build-ready designs with production drawings, BOMs, and 3D master models.
• Develop new products from concept to prototype to production for new markets.
• Build configurable master models to enable rapid variant creation.
• Perform engineering calculations for heat transfer, pressure drop, and structural integrity.
• Collaborate with production to optimize part count and lead times; ensure design compatibility with fabrication.
• Maintain revision control and support ECO processes.

Skills

3–7 years experience

Autodesk Inventor

SOLIDWORKS

Shop floor fabrication awareness

Engineering fundamentals

Revision control & BOM management

Education

Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering

Tools

Autodesk Inventor

AutoCAD

PDM/PLM (Vault)

Job description

About American Chillers

American Chillers designs and manufactures industrial process chillers and cooling systems for a growing range of demanding applications: industrial process, brewing, medical imaging (MRI/LINAC), battery energy storage (BESS), data centers, and more. We’re a growth-stage manufacturer building custom, engineered-to-order equipment. The engineer who designs a machine here sees it built a few steps away and shipped to a real customer.

The Role

We’re hiring a Mechanical Design Engineer to own and accelerate the mechanical design of our chillers. You’ll design the machine itself: frames, enclosures, sheet metal, refrigerant and water piping, and component packaging. You’ll build the 3D models, assemblies, and production drawings the shop builds from, and you’ll develop the new chiller platforms we’re taking into new markets.

This is a design-first role. Most of your time goes to 3D CAD, design calculations, and releasing build-ready designs. The rest goes to backing up our Sales Engineer on non-standard applications, so you understand how and where the equipment you design is used.

We design in Autodesk Inventor and AutoCAD, with Vault for PDM, and we want to model and document our product line properly: configurable master models for our chiller families, clean revision control, and 3D models that feed straight into sheet-metal and pipe fabrication. You’ll help build that foundation and set the standard for how we design.

What You’ll Do

Design

• Design chillers in 3D. Model frames, bases, enclosures, sheet-metal panels, component mounting, and full assemblies for standard and custom units.
• Route piping. Lay out refrigerant circuits and process-water piping, including valves, fittings, and service access, with fabrication and serviceability in mind.
• Release build-ready designs. Produce production drawings, assembly drawings, flat patterns, and engineering BOMs that the shop and our Manufacturing Engineer build and plan from.
• Develop new products. Take new platforms from concept to prototype to production for markets such as BESS, medical imaging, and data centers. Work with suppliers on compressors, heat exchangers, coils, fans, and pumps.
• Build configurable master models. Turn our chiller families into rule-driven, configurable models (e.g. iLogic or design tables) so a new variant takes hours instead of days.
• Run the engineering math. Do heat-transfer, pressure-drop, structural, and weight/rigging checks that back up your designs, and help codify them into our design tools.
• Design for manufacturing and cost. Work with production to reduce part count, rework, cost, and lead time, and make sure designs flow cleanly into sheet-metal and pipe-bending equipment.
• Own revision control. Check designs in and out of PDM, release revisions, and run engineering changes (ECOs) cleanly, so everyone builds from the current approved design.

Application support

• Back up the Sales Engineer on non-standard or first-of-a-kind requests. Answer “can we build this, and how?” and review special requirements before we commit to them.
• Review submittals for design feasibility and join the occasional customer or engineer call when a project needs the designer in the room.

Why Join Us

• You own the design. You won’t be one of fifty engineers on a single subassembly. You’ll shape whole machines and product families.
• You’ll build the design system: Autodesk Inventor/Vault, configurable models, and a model-to-machine fabrication thread. You help decide how it’s done.
• You’ll see results quickly. Design a unit, see it built on our floor, and hear how it performs in the field.
• The markets are growing and technically interesting: BESS, medical imaging, data centers, and industrial process.
• Direct line to ownership, and an on-site team in Columbia, SC.

Required

• 3–7 years of mechanical design experience on equipment, machinery, or engineered products. HVAC/R, refrigeration, process cooling, or similar skid/packaged equipment is strongly preferred.
• Strong 3D parametric CAD skills, ideally Autodesk Inventor. Strong SOLIDWORKS users who can move to Inventor quickly are welcome. You’ve built large assemblies, sheet-metal parts, and production drawings that a shop actually built from.
• Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering or a closely related field. Equivalent hands‑on design experience will be considered.
• Solid engineering fundamentals: thermodynamics, heat transfer, fluid flow, and basic structural analysis, applied to real hardware.
• Drawing discipline: clean drawings, sound tolerancing, accurate BOMs, and careful revision control.
• Comfort on the shop floor. You go look at the build, talk with the people making your parts, and fix the design when it’s wrong.
• On-site in the Columbia, SC area. This is not a remote role.

Preferred

• Refrigeration-circuit design experience (compressors, expansion devices, heat exchangers, coils).
• Pipe/tube routing and sheet‑metal design for fabrication (flat patterns, bend tables, DXF to laser, punch, or press brake).
• Configurable/rule‑based modeling (iLogic, design tables, configurations) for product families.
• Autodesk Vault (or other PDM/PLM) experience and formal ECO processes.
• New‑product‑development experience taking a design from concept through prototype to production.
• AutoCAD experience, including the Electrical or Plant 3D toolsets.
• GD&T, FEA, or experience with ASME / UL / NEC requirements for packaged equipment.

You don’t need to know our chillers on day one. We want someone who already designs real equipment well and wants to own a product line: build it right, make it faster to design, and take it into new markets.

• Salary $80,000–$95,000/year, depending on experience and design depth.
• 401(k) with company match
• Paid time off
• Paid holidays
• Full-time, on‑site, Monday–Friday in Columbia, SC

American Chillers and Cooling Tower Systems is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability status, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law.