Data Center Infrastructure Mechanical Engineer

Data Center Infrastructure Mechanical Engineer

Team: Datacenter Design

Location: San Francisco

Employment type: FullTime

Workplace type: Hybrid

Remote: yes

Published: 2026-04-19T21:39:29.669+00:00

About the Team

OpenAI is building the infrastructure foundation for the next generation of AI. The Data Center Engineering team defines the strategy, reference architectures, technical requirements, and delivery standards for the large-scale data centers that support OpenAI research, products, and infrastructure partners.

As a Data Center Infrastructure Mechanical Engineer, you will help design, validate, and scale the cooling and mechanical systems that make high-density AI compute possible. You will work across thermal architecture, equipment development, manufacturing validation, construction, commissioning, deployment, and operations, partnering with research, hardware engineering, data center engineering, supply chain, EHS, operations, and external delivery partners.

About The Role

We are seeking a senior mechanical infrastructure engineer to lead the development of reliable, efficient, safe, and scalable thermal architectures for high-density, liquid-cooled AI data centers. This role is ideal for someone who can translate evolving compute and rack-level thermal requirements into practical infrastructure designs, evaluate complex equipment and vendor solutions, and drive technical decisions across facilities, hardware, controls, telemetry, testing, commissioning, and operations.

The ideal candidate has deep hands-on experience with mission-critical mechanical systems at data center or comparable critical infrastructure scale, including chilled water plants, condenser water systems, cooling towers, dry coolers, pumps, heat exchangers, CDUs, manifolds, CRAHs, air handlers, filtration, water treatment, controls, liquid distribution, and high-density rack cooling interfaces.

Key Responsibilities

• Define mechanical and cooling infrastructure requirements and reference architectures for AI data center campuses, including heat rejection, chilled water, condenser water, liquid cooling distribution, air handling, containment, filtration, water treatment, controls, and metering.

• Review and develop basis-of-design documents, design narratives, P&IDs, mechanical schedules, equipment specifications, thermal capacity models, hydraulic models, CFD analysis, controls sequences, and commissioning requirements.

• Evaluate mechanical architectures for high-density compute, including direct-to-chip liquid cooling, CDU topology, facility water interfaces, manifolds, quick disconnects, hoses, heat exchangers, pumping strategies, leak detection, serviceability, and failure isolation.

• Partner with electrical, controls, hardware, networking, construction, and operations teams to ensure cooling systems support liquid-cooled GPU rack deployments and reliable facility operation.

• Develop technical specifications and acceptance criteria for chillers, cooling towers, dry coolers, evaporative coolers, pumps, heat exchangers, CDUs, manifolds, valves, filters, water treatment systems, CRAHs, air handlers, VFDs, controls panels, sensors, and monitoring devices.

• Lead technical evaluation of equipment vendors, manufacturers, design consultants, commissioning agents, contractors, and testing laboratories; review submittals, P&IDs, control diagrams, performance curves, test reports, certifications, and quality documentation.

• Drive factory acceptance testing, site acceptance testing, witness testing, pressure testing, leak testing, thermal performance testing, reliability testing, interoperability testing, and integrated systems testing for critical equipment and high-density rack deployments.

• Help design and operate a hardware and data center infrastructure R&D laboratory used to validate new cooling equipment, liquid-cooled GPU rack designs, operating envelopes, fault scenarios, telemetry, and facility-hardware interactions.

• Collaborate with hardware manufacturers to evaluate L10 and L11 test procedures, yield, throughput, reliability, serviceability, and readiness for large-scale deployment.

• Define telemetry and controls requirements for mechanical and supporting electrical systems, including temperatures, flow rates, differential pressure, pump status, valve position, chiller status, CDU status, coolant quality, leak detection, alarms, control states, and rack-level thermal signals.

• Analyze lab data, operational incidents, thermal excursions, flow excursions, pressure excursions, leak events, contamination events, nuisance alarms, controls alarms, and rack-level thermal failures to improve designs, procedures, vendor quality, and reliability models.

• Create clear engineering documentation, standards, test procedures, commissioning scripts, operating procedures, decision records, risk registers, and executive-ready technical summaries.

• Provide senior technical escalation support during design reviews, construction, manufacturing validation, commissioning, startup, production deployment, vendor testing, and operational events.

• Mentor partner teams and raise the technical bar for mechanical design, thermal validation, safety, water quality, documentation, reliability, and operational rigor.

Required Qualifications

• Extensive senior-level experience in data center mechanical engineering, mission-critical facilities, high-performance computing infrastructure, thermal systems, or comparable critical infrastructure environments, typically gained through 10+ years of relevant work or equivalent depth of experience.

• Deep expertise in mechanical design, commissioning, operations, maintenance, reliability, and lifecycle management at large campus or multi-site scale.

• Hands-on experience with chilled water systems, condenser water systems, process cooling water, cooling towers, dry coolers, evaporative cooling, pumps, heat exchangers, CDUs, manifolds, CRAHs, air handlers, filtration, water treatment, valves, piping, controls, and monitoring systems.

• Experience designing, testing, certifying, commissioning, or operating equipment used in high-density compute or mission-critical environments, including liquid cooling systems, CDUs, high-flow hydronic systems, heat exchangers, rack manifolds, quick disconnects, and thermal monitoring systems.

• Experience reviewing and producing technical design packages, equipment specifications, design narratives,...