Design Manager (Mechanical / Electrical Engineer) | Data Centres (MCF)

Description

Zutari is a leading buildings, engineering and advisory firm with over 90 years of experience across Africa and the Middle East. Within our Buildings practice, we design resilient, sustainable, and high-performance spaces that shape how people live, work, and connect.

From structural and civil engineering to façade, fire, and building services, we bring together integrated expertise to deliver environments that are intelligent, future-ready, and built for lasting impact.

We are looking for individuals who are passionate about shaping spaces that go beyond function and create environments that inspire, enable, and endure.

What kind of talent do we pursue?

We employ people with the right attitude and a positive mindset, who are motivated by doing the right thing, getting things done and share a sense of urgency. People who have an impact in our teams and broader community. People who think differently and connect with those around them to co-create new opportunities and leave a meaningful legacy.

We’re seeking a high-performing professional with a passion for excellence, innovation, and collaboration. You’re someone who thrives in fast-paced environments, leads with purpose, and brings deep technical expertise to complex challenges. You think differently, connect meaningfully, and leave a legacy through your work.

We have an exciting opportunity for a Design Manager to join our Data Centre team to be located in our Cape Town or Tshwane offices.

As part of our Data Centre team, you will be a key member of the delivery team virtually designing and constructing a wide range of projects. Your experience, ability to see the greater picture, accuracy, drive for standardisation and eye for detail will assist our team to co-create an engineered impact on our clients.

Your Design Management experience will see you heading leading dynamic project teams to co-create engineering solutions digitally. You will bridge the gap between the various design and execution teams, ensuring that our designs are:

• Holistically delivered at high quality

• Feasible

• Within budget

• Meet client requirements

Key Role Responsibilities

• End-to-End Design Delivery Ownership:

• Own the full design lifecycle from concept to IFC, ensuring complete, coordinated, compliant, and construction-ready outputs.

• Maintain scope clarity, design intent continuity, decision tracking, and disciplined change control.

• Drive design progress, issue resolution, and information flow to protect delivery velocity and programme certainty.

• Ensure all design packages align with client performance requirements, commercial assumptions, and procurement strategy.

• Multi-Disciplinary Integration & Technical Assurance:

• Lead technical and design-side integration across Architectural, Structural, Mechanical, Electrical, CSA, OEM and specialist disciplines, ensuring system-level alignment and coherent engineering outcomes.

• Resolve technical interfaces, sequencing issues, and engineering dependencies early, ensuring functional alignment between cooling, power, structural, fire/life-safety, and architectural systems.

• Provide technical assurance by reviewing engineering assumptions, design narratives, basis of design inputs, and discipline deliverables for completeness, correctness, and alignment with project requirements.

• Collaborate with BIM Manager and BIM Coordinator on digital/model coordination activities, ensuring that BIM outputs support design intent while not performing BIM model QA, clash detection, or CDE administration.

• Programme, Cost, Scope & Risk Control:

• Own the design schedule, deliverable sequencing, and milestone readiness to maintain programme certainty under fast-track conditions.

• Control design scope, fee alignment, and change management, escalating commercial or design risks early with recommended actions.

• Evaluate design decisions and changes for cost, programme, risk, constructability, and operability impacts, maintaining clear decision logs.

• Maintain a live risk register and drive proactive mitigation actions to safeguard delivery, quality, budget, and reliability outcomes.

• Ensure all material technical, programme, and cost risks are escalated in line with the Data Centres escalation framework, irrespective of Business Unit or project pressures.

• Client & Stakeholder Leadership:

• Act as the primary design interface for clients, OEMs, consultants, authorities, and contractors, securing timely decisions and approvals.

• Facilitate workshops and technical reviews, translating complex requirements and risks into clear design direction and options for decision-making.

• Communicate technical implications, trade-offs, and risks concisely, ensuring full client understanding and sustained confidence.

• Build strong working relationships that support repeat business, bid positioning, and long-term pipeline stability.

• Protect Data Centres sector reputation and client confidence by ensuring technical positions are consistent, defensible, and aligned with enterprise DC standards.

• Quality, Constructability, Sustainability & Innovation:

• Own engineering quality assurance for design deliverables, ensuring all technical documents (drawings, reports, specifications, schedules) meet accuracy, compliance, integration, and performance requirements.

• Drive constructability and maintainability within the design, ensuring safe access, replacement routes, serviceability, installation feasibility, and operational resilience in line with data centre best practice.

• Promote sustainable, energy efficient, scalable and modular solutions, ensuring mechanical/electrical resilience philosophies align with client performance objectives.

• Coordinate with BIM roles for digital QA/QC, ensuring BIM outputs reflect design decisions — without performing BIM coordination tasks, digital audits, or clash management responsibilities.

• Design Authority & Governance:

• Act as the appointed technical authority for Data Centre projects.

• Confirm and lock technical assumptions, scope dependencies, and standards compliance at bid and pre-award stages.

• Exercise mandatory escalation where deviations from approved DC standards, contracted assumptions, or agreed risk thresholds occur.

• Support the Lead: Data Centres by surfacing systemic design, capability, or delivery risks impacting sector performance, margin, or reputation.

• Operate within the defined DC decision authority and escalation model, inclusive of Business Unit reporting lines.

Minimum Requirements

Qualifications

• BEng/BSc Eng in in Engineering (Mechanical, Electrical, Mechatronic, Industrial, or other relevant engineering discipline)

• Professional registration: Pr.Eng with ECSA

• Postgraduate qualification in Mechanical/Electrical Engineering / Building Services / Project Management would be advantageous.

• Continued professional development in cooling technologies, data centre engineering, energy efficiency, or related specialisations.

• Uptime Institute Accredited Tier Designer (ATD) certification would be advantageous.

Experience

• Minimum of 6 years of engineering experience, with substantial exposure to multidisciplinary building services or complex engineered systems.

• Minimum of 3 years in design management, senior design coordination, or technical leadership roles within consulting, EPC/EPCM, or developer environments.

• Proven experience delivering mission critical or high complexity projects (data centres, industrial plants, hospitals, labs, clean rooms, or equivalent

• Demonstrated track record managing multidisciplinary design across Architectural, Structural, Mechanical, Electrical, Fire/Life Safety, CSA, OEM and specialist vendors.

• Experience managing design risk, scope, programme dependencies, change control, and deliverable sequencing under fast-track conditions.

• Experience leading or supporting client technical interactions, design workshops, approvals, and decision-making processes.

• Exposure to design governance frameworks (stage-gates, QA/QC, risk logs, design sign-off processes).

Skills

• Strong engineering foundation with the ability to understand, interrogate, and integrate mechanical, electrical, structural, architectural, and vendor inputs in a mission-critical context.

• Skilled in design planning, design sequencing, deliverable management, and structured design governance (stage-gates, design reviews, risk and decision logs).

• Strong cross-disciplinary interface management ability - aligning cooling, power, structure, architecture, fire strategy, CSA, and site constraints into a unified, buildable solution.

• Excellent programme management capability - critical path control, early escalation, design bottleneck resolution, and maintaining delivery velocity.

• High commercial awareness - understanding the impact of design decisions on cost, risk, procurement, operability, and programme.

• Excellent communication and facilitation skills - presenting options, framing risks, leading workshops, and driving decision closure across senior client teams.

• Digital and BIM Coordination, the ability to review and interpret models, drawings, and clash detection outputs without performing hands‐on modelling.

• Leadership Presence and Influence, the ability to influence multi-disciplinary teams and guide technical, schedule, and risk-related decision-making.

Competencies

• Design Governance Leadership: Drives structured design processes, stage-gates, risk management, and disciplined change control across all design workstreams.

• Cross-Disciplinary Technical Integration: Understands the interactions between cooling, power, structural, architecture, fire/life-safety, CSA, and operational requirements to deliver coherent data-centre designs.

• Engineering Judgement & Problem-Solving: Challenges assumptions, evaluates technical trade-offs, and ensures all design decisions support resilience, maintainability, cost, and programme objectives.

• Delivery Reliability & Accountability: Maintains programme certainty, anticipates bottlenecks, resolves blockers, and ensures consistent, predictable design outcomes.

• Client Leadership & Technical Communication: Builds trust, facilitates decisions, communicates risks and design options clearly, and sustains strong client relationships and satisfaction.

• Commercial Discipline: Ensures scope clarity, fee alignment, risk control, technical feasibility, and commercially viable design decisions throughout the lifecycle.

• Constructability, Operability & Sustainability Mindset: Ensures designs are buildable, maintainable, energy-efficient, and operationally reliable over the asset’s lifecycle.

• Professional Integrity & Team Collaboration: Demonstrates ownership, discipline, strong documentation practice, and effective collaboration across multi-disciplinary teams and vendor ecosystems.

We believe that a diverse workforce is key to our business success. We seek the best people for our jobs based on their skills, qualifications, and experience. We embrace the principle of equal opportunity in employment, and we work towards eliminating all forms of unlawful discrimination in our employment practices. In support of diversity and the equal opportunity principle, preference will be given to individuals from designated groups within South Africa.