Senior CFD Engineer – Remote Data Center Cooling

AECO; Arlington (VA); Remote; USD 120,000 - 200,000; Full time

Job summary

AECOM is seeking a hands‑on CFD Engineer to join the Data Center team in the Buildings and Places group in Arlington, VA, with the option for full remote work. The role conducts internal and external airflow, thermal, and equipment‑discharge studies, translating results into practical design actions and repeatable CFD workflows.

You will communicate assumptions clearly, support QA/QC, and contribute to templates, libraries, and mentoring across projects, with occasional travel for key milestones.

Qualifications

• 6+ years of hands‑on CFD experience, including data centers or mission‑critical facilities.
• Experience with CFD platforms and translating results into actionable design actions.
• Strong fundamentals in fluid mechanics, heat transfer, thermodynamics, and HVAC operation.

Responsibilities

• Own the full CFD study lifecycle from scope to final report.
• Conduct internal data hall studies: rack inlet temps, containment, bypass/recirculation, density.
• Perform external studies for cooling towers, chillers, exhausts, heat rejection and plume behavior.
• Run steady‑state and transient analyses for outages, load changes and control sequences.
• Develop defensible modeling assumptions using design docs, data, and field measurements.
• Prepare concise client‑ready reports and visualizations; communicate results to project teams.

Skills

CFD experience

Data center CFD

Fluid mechanics

Heat transfer

Thermodynamics

HVAC systems

Education

Bachelor's degree in Mechanical/Aerospace Engineering

Tools

Cadence 6SigmaDCX

Ansys Fluent

Ansys CFX

OpenFOAM

Job description

AECOM is seeking a hands‑on CFD Engineer to join the Data Center team in the Buildings and Places group in Arlington, VA, with the option for full remote work. The role conducts internal and external airflow, thermal, and equipment‑discharge studies, translating results into practical design actions and repeatable CFD workflows.

You will communicate assumptions clearly, support QA/QC, and contribute to templates, libraries, and mentoring across projects, with occasional travel for key milestones.