Design Manager (Mechanical / Electrical Engineer) | Data Centres (MCF) - (ENG-L7.144) at Zutari

• 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, structure, 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