Mechanical Engineer Manager- Utilities Operations Lead (Utilities Operations)

Location: Groton, Connecticut, United States. Onsite work is required, with occasional after-hours or weekend response and travel to the site for incidents, business continuity, emergency events, shutdowns, and project execution. Candidates must have permanent authorization to work in the United States.

Annual base salary: $99,200–$165,400, plus a 12.5% bonus target and eligibility for a share-based long-term incentive program.

Company

hirify.global operates research and development, clinical manufacturing, laboratory, vivarium, and technical facilities supporting breakthrough therapies.

What you will do

• Provide technical leadership and engineering oversight for mechanical utility systems, including cogeneration, steam, chilled water, nitrogen, compressed air, water, HVAC, laboratory gases, and related infrastructure.
• Partner with Utilities Operations and Maintenance teams to support 24/7 reliability, performance, incident response, system recovery, root cause analysis, and optimization.
• Lead utility asset lifecycle activities covering design, specification, commissioning, qualification, maintenance strategies, replacement, obsolescence planning, and capital investment prioritization.
• Lead and support utility capital and expense projects, developing scopes, technical requirements, commissioning plans, and turnover activities.
• Ensure compliance with cGMP/GxP, EHS, regulatory, business resiliency, audit, inspection, and risk-management requirements.
• Oversee external service providers and utilities contractors, including KPIs, SLAs, contract compliance, service improvement, and collaboration with Site Operations, Quality, EHS, Global Engineering, and Energy Management.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering or a related discipline.
• At least 5 years of experience in utilities or central plant operations serving critical business environments, mechanical systems and infrastructure engineering and maintenance, and technical leadership or team support.
• Strong knowledge of steam and thermal systems, cogeneration or turbine-based power systems, utility distribution, and mechanical systems.
• Expertise in combustion turbine/cogeneration operations, steam generation and distribution, nitrogen generation and distribution, instrument-quality compressed air, utility and process water, integrated utilities infrastructure, and HVAC/BMS systems.
• Comprehensive knowledge of maintenance practices and processes, strong problem-solving and decision-making skills, and proficiency with CMMS systems.
• Ability to establish and manage meaningful SLAs and KPIs with business-line customers and colleagues.
• Skilled proficiency with Microsoft Office, including PowerPoint, Excel, and Word.
• Ability to adapt to changing business conditions, manage competing priorities in critical operations environments, exercise leadership and diplomacy, negotiate effectively, communicate clearly, take initiative, multitask, work with minimal supervision, and maintain a responsive customer-service attitude.
• Ability to perform the physical and environmental duties of the role, including walking, standing, sitting, climbing stairs and ladders, kneeling, crouching, handling objects up to 30 pounds, and working in laboratories, vivariums, utility plants, maintenance areas, and manufacturing environments with required gowning and PPE.

Nice to have

• Advanced degree such as an MS or MBA.
• Experience with reliability engineering, asset management programs, distributed control systems or plant automation, energy management, sustainability initiatives, CAFM systems, AutoCAD, 2D/3D modeling, documentation reviews and updates, and capital projects.
• Professional Engineer certification or equivalent.

Culture & Benefits

• Day-shift schedule with occasional after-hours or weekend support for incidents, excursions, planned shutdowns, and project execution.
• Comprehensive benefits including a 401(k) with matching and additional retirement contributions.
• Paid vacation, holidays, personal days, caregiver/parental leave, and medical leave.
• Medical, prescription drug, dental, and vision coverage.
• Relocation assistance may be available based on business needs and eligibility.
• U.S. work visa sponsorship is not available now or in the future.

Hiring process

• Applications are accepted until November 6, 2026.
• Employment requires permanent U.S. work authorization; hirify.global is an E-Verify employer.