Senior Data Center Controls Engineer

Socket.dev; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 140,000 - 210,000; Full time

Job summary

Lambda, The Superintelligence Cloud, seeks a controls-engineering professional to design and commission mechanical controls for data centers. You will lead sequences of operation, sensor selection, and BMS integration, collaborating with mechanical, electrical, network, and commissioning teams.

You will define and refine control architectures for central plants, cooling loops, and plant equipment, while supporting testing, startup, and ongoing optimization at scale.

Qualifications

• Have experience designing or commissioning mechanical controls for data centers, mission-critical facilities, central plants, or industrial environments.
• Understand chilled-water, condenser-water, heat-rejection, air-cooling, and liquid-cooling systems.
• Can translate operational requirements into clear, testable control behavior.

Responsibilities

• Own controls standards and reference architectures for mechanical systems supporting large-scale AI data centers.
• Develop control narratives, sequences of operation, points lists, alarm matrices, cause-and-effect diagrams, and controller requirements.
• Define automation for central cooling plants, heat-rejection systems, pumps, heat exchangers, CRAHs, CDUs, liquid-cooling loops, valves, and associated equipment.
• Design system behavior for startup, shutdown, maintenance, component failure, utility loss, and recovery.
• Establish requirements for sensors, actuators, meters, control panels, PLCs, DDC controllers, gateways, and operator interfaces.
• Define BMS integration, mechanical telemetry, trending, alarming, data retention, and interfaces with other operational systems.
• Review partner designs, vendor submittals, control drawings, network architectures, and equipment packages for compliance with Lambda standards.
• Coordinate controls requirements across mechanical, electrical, network, hardware, construction, commissioning, and operations teams.
• Support factory testing, site acceptance testing, commissioning, integrated systems testing, and cooling-system bring-up.
• Troubleshoot control-loop instability, sensor errors, communication failures, nuisance alarms, and sequence deficiencies.
• Incorporate commissioning results and operating lessons into future designs and control standards.
• Travel to project sites, manufacturers, and partner facilities as needed.

Skills

Mechanical controls design

Data center experience

PLC/DDC/BMS knowledge

Sensors and actuators

Sequencing and operation procedures

Cross-functional communication

Travel capable

Education

Bachelor’s degree in mechanical, electrical, controls, or systems engineering

Tools

BACnet

Modbus

OPC UA

P&ID drawings

Control diagrams

Job description

Lambda, The Superintelligence Cloud, seeks a controls-engineering professional to design and commission mechanical controls for data centers. You will lead sequences of operation, sensor selection, and BMS integration, collaborating with mechanical, electrical, network, and commissioning teams.

You will define and refine control architectures for central plants, cooling loops, and plant equipment, while supporting testing, startup, and ongoing optimization at scale.