Principal Mechanical Engineer (CFD) - Data Centers

About the role

AECOM is looking for a hands-on CFD Engineer to join its Data Center team in Bogota. This individual-contributor role executes internal and external airflow, thermal and equipment-discharge studies with minimal oversight, turns simulation results into practical design actions and helps build repeatable, high-quality CFD workflows across several concurrent projects.

Key responsibilities

• Own the full CFD study lifecycle: define the design question and acceptance criteria, build geometry, mesh, set boundary conditions, solve, verify convergence, post-process and issue technical reports.
• Perform internal data hall studies on rack inlet temperatures, airflow distribution, hot/cold-aisle containment, bypass and recirculation, raised floors, cooling-unit placement, rack density, failure modes and capacity expansion.
• Perform external studies for cooling towers, chillers, dry coolers, generator and boiler exhaust, mechanical yards, relief air, outdoor-air intakes, heat rejection, plume behavior and short-circuiting.
• Run steady-state and transient analyses for cooling-system outages, equipment failures, load changes, control sequences and thermal ride-through.
• Develop defensible modeling assumptions, run mesh-sensitivity checks, mass and energy balance reviews and convergence assessments, and evaluate results against ASHRAE TC 9.9 guidance and client requirements.
• Translate findings into recommendations for equipment selection, airflow management, containment, controls, phasing and redundancy, and prepare client-ready reports and presentations.
• Contribute to templates, modeling procedures, quality-checklists and lessons learned, and mentor less-experienced staff.

Required profile

• Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering or a closely related discipline.
• 5+ years of hands-on CFD experience, including data centers or mission-critical facilities.
• Proven track record of delivering CFD studies independently from scoping to final report.
• Strong fundamentals in fluid mechanics, heat transfer, thermodynamics, turbulence modeling and HVAC operation.
• Working knowledge of data center cooling architectures, HVAC, redundancy, controls and failure scenarios.
• Advanced written and spoken English.

Required skills

• Proficiency with at least one CFD platform such as Cadence 6SigmaDCX, Ansys Fluent, Ansys CFX or OpenFOAM.
• Technical writing, visualization and presentation skills.

Relocation assistance and work authorization sponsorship are not available for this position.