Associate Director – Building Services (Mechanical)

WSP in the Middle East is currently hiring a Specialist – Mechanical – Metro stations to join our team in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The successful candidate will own the end-to-end mechanical station fit-out design for rail/metro/train stations—covering HVAC, environmental control, smoke control/TVS, stairwell/room pressurization, cooling of technical spaces, and integration with BMS/SCADA—through concept, schematic, detailed/IFC, tender, and construction support.

• Lead station HVAC & ventilation design (underground, at-grade, elevated): cooling/heating load estimates, plant sizing (chilled water/DX/VRF), AHU/FAHU/FCU selection, filtration strategy (sand/dust), ventilation/pressurization of platforms, concourses, back-of-house and plantrooms.

• Engineer smoke control & TVS: fan, shaft and damper sizing/arrangement; platform & concourse smoke layer management; stair & lift lobby pressurization; PSD heat load coordination; emergency modes and control logic.

• Technical room cooling & resilience: N+1 redundancy and environmental control for S&T/relay/SCADA/UPS rooms, communications and data spaces; thermal runaway risk checks and alarm set-points.

• High-ambient design: equipment derating, coil selections, corrosion mitigation, airside economizer feasibility, sand-ingress protection, acoustic and indoor air-quality criteria.

• Digital delivery: Revit/AutoCAD & Navisworks BIM coordination, clash prevention, interface matrices; structured model reviews and info-exchange (BEP compliance).

• Calculations & deliverables: Basis-of-Design, detailed calcs, P&IDs/schematics, control sequences, layouts/sections/details, equipment schedules, specifications/BOQs, performance ERs.

• Analysis & verification: CFD/FDS for smoke and comfort, SES or equivalent for tunnel/station ventilation where applicable; egress and fire strategy interface workshops.

• Approvals & stakeholders: manage KSA authority submissions; lead multidisciplinary design reviews; run value engineering and risk registers.

• Construction support: respond to RFIs, review vendor submittals, witness FAT/SAT, support T&C and seasonal commissioning.

• Team leadership: mentor engineers/designers; plan workloads, QA/QC deliverables, and contribute to proposals/level-of-effort.

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering.

• Professional registration (e.g., CEng/PE) strongly preferred.

• 12–18+ years in building services with major rail/metro station HVAC/ventilation delivery in design consultancy; GCC experience strongly preferred.

• Proven expertise in:

• Station HVAC, ventilation and smoke control/pressurization to NFPA/EN standards.

• Cooling of critical technical rooms with resilience (N+1, duty/standby).

• Writing control philosophies/sequences and BMS/SCADA integration.

• BIM coordination (Revit/Navisworks) and production of IFC-ready deliverables.

• Tools: HAP/IES/TRACE (or equivalent), CFD/FDS, SES (or similar), MS Office.

• Strong stakeholder skills and the ability to lead workshops with client, operator, and authorities.

Nice to Have

• District cooling interface design; energy modelling/optimization for high-ambient climates.

• Experience with tunnel ventilation interactions and evacuation scenarios in multi-station corridors.

• Prior approvals experience with Riyadh Civil Defense/SBC.

• RAMS familiarity (EN 50126/8/9) and reliability-led design.

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