Role Overview
The Design Principal, Engineering Development (Mechanical) plays a pivotal role in shaping global mechanical engineering direction for Equinix design.
* Leading the development of Equinix's Reference Designs to meet evolving customer needs.
* Evaluating new products and engineering approaches to inform innovation strategies.
* Collaborating with Regional Design teams to implement project solutions.
* Providing expert guidance to the Major Capital Equipment (MCE) team on portfolio-wide procurement of mechanical equipment.
* Engaging with key customers to understand their design requirements and directing Reference Design configurations accordingly.
Design Process
The Design Principal, Engineering Development (Mechanical) owns and leads the design process, interacting with Architectural, MEP, and other design partners to deliver world-class datacenters.
This involves reviewing and contributing to the development of globally standardized tools, techniques, and processes for design management and reporting.
Key responsibilities include master planning expansion portfolios using global design standards and templates; incorporating regional information to apply these to project inception.
Generating project visualization, initial models using reference design templates, and cost estimates for business case generation is also essential.
Liaising with regional teams to incorporate local infrastructure into designs and working with commercial management teams regionally and globally to assist business case generation are critical aspects of the role.
Preparing regional-specific and customer-specific configurations of the Reference Design, reacting to local market conditions and customer requirements, is another important responsibility.
Cross-functional coordination is necessary to maintain interpersonal relationships with internal technical staff, external design consulting partners, construction management, commercial management, and regional P&L holders to ensure stakeholder exposure and buy-in to IBX projects.
Appropriately leveraging center of excellence teams and senior Design staff to augment individual technical expertise ensures all facets of datacenter design are adequately considered and approved.
Managing internal and external resources through influence and outstanding competencies is crucial.
Partnering with Global Operations, Global Design Standards, and other internal Equinix teams to achieve alignment on design details supports creation of multi-discipline Reference packages.
Finally, this role involves partnering with Procurement teams in evaluating and selecting mechanical equipment and providing lifecycle support to Global Operations, applying lifecycle feedback to the selection process.
Supporting xScale and Global Account Management in conversations with key customers on design requirements and keeping them updated on Equinix's design roadmap is also essential.
Project Management
The Design Principal, Engineering Development (Mechanical) indirectly manages experienced electrical and mechanical engineering staff in the Independent Technical Review to deliver world-class datacenter designs on time and to budget.
Directly responsible for managing the design schedule for assigned projects to ensure timely creation and review of BODs, REIC Submissions, and design documentation for IFP and IFC sets.
Managing design budgets and controlling change management requests during the construction phase, in consultation with the Construction Manager, is also critical.
Working closely with regional design teams and Construction Managers to deliver Concept Designs and Standards that support world-class datacenter delivery is essential.
Testing the cost impact of design concepts with the Commercial Management team and keeping a logical record of pricing-tested design concepts that have been discounted is also necessary.
Managing Reference Design external consultant teams, providing direction on mechanical engineering, is another key responsibility.
Documenting customer technical requirements and solutioning customer-specific accommodations within Reference Designs is critical.
Design Oversight
The Design Principal, Engineering Development (Mechanical) stays up-to-date on advancements in design being investigated by centers of excellence teams to ensure technologies support future IBX design and construction needs and feeds back information to construction for incorporation of changes.
Ensuring designs meet Equinix's Global Design Standards and business needs for capacity, density, and function is crucial.
Utilizing design review findings and best practices to inform Reference Design development is essential.
Feeding back requested changes to Global Design Standards arising out of projects is also necessary.
Bringing a systemic and scale-focused approach to tools and process for early-stage design, identifying shortfalls or opportunities to scale, and conceptually ideating tools and process development solutions is critical.
Owns the Mechanical discipline of the Reference Design and assists regional teams in selecting and implementing configurations or variations.
Owns the repository of Reference Design mechanical equipment technical submittals and the feedback loop from projects and vendors for necessary updates.
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