Principal Mechanical Engineer (CFD) - Data Centers

- Full-time
- Business Group: DCS
- Legal Entity: AECOM Services SAS
- Business Line: Building Engineering
- Work Location Model: On-Site
- Operating Group: Group Support
- Primary Location: CO - Bogota, Colombia - Carrera 11 #

Work with Us. Change the World.

At AECOM, we're delivering a better world. Whether improving your commute, keeping the lights on, providing access to clean water, or transforming skylines, our work helps people and communities thrive. We are the world's trusted infrastructure consulting firm, partnering with clients to solve the world’s most complex challenges and build legacies for future generations.

There has never been a better time to be at AECOM. With accelerating infrastructure investment worldwide, our services are in great demand. We invite you to bring your bold ideas and big dreams and become part of a global team of over 50,000 planners, designers, engineers, scientists, digital innovators, program and construction managers and other professionals delivering projects that create a positive and tangible impact around the world.

We're one integral team driven by our common purpose to deliver a better world. Join us.

AECOM is seeking a hands-on CFD Engineer to join its Data Center team. This individual-contributor role is responsible for executing internal and external airflow, thermal, and equipment-discharge studies with minimal oversight. The successful candidate will convert complex simulation results into practical design actions, clearly communicate assumptions and limitations, and help establish repeatable, high-quality CFD workflows across multiple concurrent projects.

- Own the full CFD study lifecycle: clarify the design question,



define scope and acceptance criteria, develop the methodology, build geometry, generate the mesh, establish boundary conditions, solve, verify convergence, post-process results, and issue technical reports.
- Perform internal data hall studies addressing rack inlet temperatures, airflow distribution, hot- and cold-aisle containment, bypass and recirculation, raised-floor or slab configurations, cooling-unit placement, rack density, failure modes, and capacity-expansion scenarios.
- Perform external studies for cooling towers, chillers, dry coolers, generator and boiler exhaust, mechanical yards, relief air, outdoor-air intakes, heat rejection, plume behavior, short-circuiting, and thermal re-entrainment.
- Conduct steady-state and transient analyses for cooling-system outages, equipment failures, load changes, control sequences, thermal ride-through, and other operating scenarios defined by the project team.
- Develop defensible modeling assumptions using design documents, equipment data, controls narratives, weather data, commissioning information, and field measurements; identify data gaps and document their impact on conclusions.
- Apply sound verification and validation practices, including mesh-sensitivity checks, mass and energy balance reviews, convergence assessment, comparison with hand calculations,



and correlation to measured or monitoring data when available.
- Evaluate results against project-specific criteria and relevant guidance, including ASHRAE TC 9.9 thermal guidance and applicable client, code, and industry requirements.
- Translate findings into prioritized, actionable recommendations for equipment selection, airflow management, containment, intake/exhaust separation, controls, phasing, redundancy, and operational resilience.
- Prepare concise, client-ready reports and visualizations that clearly communicate methodology, assumptions, scenarios, results, risks, limitations, and recommended next steps.
- Present findings and coordinate directly with multidisciplinary project teams to resolve issues and confirm implementation of recommendations.
- Contribute to standardized templates, modeling procedures, quality-control checklists, libraries, and lessons learned; support technical knowledge sharing and mentoring of less-experienced staff.

Required Qualifications

- Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, or a closely related engineering discipline.
- 5+ years of hands-on CFD experience, including direct application to data centers, mission-critical facilities, or similarly complex thermal-management environments.
- Demonstrated success independently delivering CFD studies from scoping through final report, including geometry preparation, meshing, solver setup, convergence assessment, post-processing, and engineering interpretation.
- Proficiency with at least one data-center or general-purpose CFD platform, such as Cadence 6SigmaDCX, Ansys Fluent, Ansys CFX, or OpenFOAM, and the ability to learn and apply project-

📌 Principal Mechanical Engineer (Medellín)
🏢 AECO
📍 Medellín