Staff Mechanical Engineer

Lambda; United States; Remote; USD 130,000 - 200,000; Full time

Job summary

Lambda, The Superintelligence Cloud, is a leader in AI cloud infrastructure, seeking a Mechanical Engineer to own design standards and cooling architectures for large-scale data centers. The role requires in-person presence in San Francisco or San Jose four days per week, with Tuesday as the work-from-home day.

You will develop central plants, cooling systems, and equipment specs, perform detailed calculations, and review partner designs to ensure Lambda standards and reliability across projects.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering or equivalent.
• Experience designing mechanical systems for data centers or mission-critical facilities.
• Ability to develop and review P&IDs, mechanical layouts, equipment schedules, specifications, and calculations.
• Knowledge of hydronic, chilled-water, heat transfer, and water-treatment systems.
• Familiarity with relevant codes and standards.

Responsibilities

• Own mechanical design standards and reference architectures for large-scale AI data centers.
• Develop cooling architectures for greenfield, retrofit, and partner-operated facilities.
• Design central plants, heat-rejection systems, hydronic distribution, air-cooling systems, and direct-to-chip liquid-cooling infrastructure.
• Perform cooling-load, heat-transfer, hydraulic, pressure-drop, psychrometric, and equipment-capacity calculations.
• Develop and review P&IDs, equipment schedules, layouts, specifications, sequences of operation, and basis-of-design documents.
• Select and size chillers, cooling towers, dry coolers, pumps, heat exchangers, CRAHs, CDUs, piping, valves, and water-treatment systems.
• Evaluate designs for capacity, redundancy, failure isolation, maintainability, efficiency, water use, constructability, cost, and schedule.
• Translate GPU, rack, and cluster thermal requirements into facility cooling requirements.
• Review partner designs, vendor submittals, construction documents, and equipment packages for compliance with Lambda standards.
• Coordinate mechanical interfaces with electrical systems, controls, building structure, hardware engineering, construction, commissioning, and operations.
• Travel to project sites, manufacturers, and partner facilities as needed.

Skills

Mechanical design

Data center cooling

Hydronic systems

P&IDs & layouts

Engineering calculations

Education

Bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering

Job description

Lambda, The Superintelligence Cloud, is a leader in AI cloud infrastructure serving tens of thousands of customers. Our customers range from AI researchers to enterprises and hyperscalers. Lambda's mission is to make compute as ubiquitous as electricity and give everyone the power of superintelligence. One person, one GPU.

Note: This position requires presence in our San Francisco or San Jose office location 4 days per week; Lambda's designated work from home day is currently Tuesday.

What You'll Do

• Own mechanical design standards and reference architectures for large-scale AI data centers.
• Develop cooling architectures for greenfield, retrofit, and partner-operated facilities.
• Design central plants, heat-rejection systems, hydronic distribution, air-cooling systems, and direct-to-chip liquid-cooling infrastructure.
• Perform cooling-load, heat-transfer, hydraulic, pressure-drop, psychrometric, and equipment-capacity calculations.
• Develop and review P IDs, equipment schedules, layouts, specifications, sequences of operation, and basis-of-design documents.
• Select and size chillers, cooling towers, dry coolers, pumps, heat exchangers, CRAHs, CDUs, piping, valves, and water-treatment systems.
• Evaluate designs for capacity, redundancy, failure isolation, maintainability, efficiency, water use, constructability, cost, and schedule.
• Translate GPU, rack, and cluster thermal requirements into facility cooling requirements.
• Review partner designs, vendor submittals, construction documents, and equipment packages for compliance with Lambda standards.
• Coordinate mechanical interfaces with electrical systems, controls, building structure, hardware engineering, construction, commissioning, and operations.
• Support equipment selection, long-lead procurement, factory testing, construction sequencing, commissioning, and system bring-up.
• Investigate cooling failures and operational risks, driving lessons back into future designs.
• Travel to project sites, manufacturers, and partner facilities as needed.

YouHave

• experience designing mechanical systems for data centers, mission-critical facilities, central plants, or large industrial environments.
• Understand hydronic systems, heat transfer, chilled-water systems, heat rejection, pumping, filtration, and water treatment.
• Can develop and review P IDs, mechanical layouts, equipment schedules, technical specifications, and engineering calculations.
• Understand mechanical redundancy, failure domains, maintainability, and operational requirements.
• Can evaluate system performance across changing weather conditions and compute loads.
• Understand applicable mechanical, plumbing, energy, and safety codes and standards.
• Can balance cooling performance, efficiency, water consumption, reliability, cost, and delivery schedule.
• Communicate clearly across engineering, construction, operations, vendors, and executive stakeholders.
• Hold a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering or equivalent practica.