Controls Engineer

The Controls Engineer, reporting to the Director, Building Automation and Performance, within Facilities Operations Engineering and Campus Energy is a strategic partner in the Facilities organization, providing direction, planning, and execution for the stewardship for building automation systems in over 350 buildings with 10+ million gross square feet of space and over 2,600 acres on campus.

The Controls Engineer is responsible for monitoring and continuous improvement of building controls within university buildings to ensure optimal performance of building automation systems across the campus portfolio. The successful candidate must ensure that the University is receiving the best value for HVAC controls on both existing buildings and all new construction and renovation projects. 

This work includes responding to emergencies anytime during the day, night, or weekends. 

Building Automation Control Systems

• Manage and continuously improve building control systems across the university to ensure optimal building performance, with a focus on sustainability and energy conservation.
• Oversee the selection, acquisition, and implementation of new building controls, managing vendors and contractors.
• Direct building control technicians and control room operators, particularly in the installation and operation of HVAC control systems, and manage ongoing commissioning and maintenance of HVAC, lighting, electrical, and plumbing controls.
• Collaborate with IT teams to manage the system's network and ensure alignment with the university's critical infrastructure and risk management frameworks.
• Design, budget, install, commission, operate and maintain new control systems that follow the sequence of operations worked out with the project mechanical engineer.
• Provide working knowledge of HVAC systems and energy management systems and complete familiarity with university environmental guidelines for energy conservation. Requires ensuring that University Design Standards, especially for HVAC and ATC systems, are always applied.

Enterprise Asset Management

• Manage control system assets. (Servers, BAS network devices, application specific controllers, user access, controller addressing, and network registrations)
• Help ensure the reliability of control systems by managing and maintaining backups of all applications and configurations necessary for disaster recovery.
• Manage and coordinates access to control system data needed to support continued monitoring, tracking, and reporting on environmental conditions, energy use and efficiency.
• Stay current with emerging technologies, driving innovation in building control systems through data analytics, and initiating pilot projects to advance system performance.

Campus Energy and Sustainability

• Play a supporting role in the development, implementation, and execution of the university's strategy for reducing carbon emissions and reducing energy costs.
• Recognize HVAC systems with unsatisfactory operational performance and make comprehensive software changes to fix the problem and minimize energy use.

Stakeholder Engagement

• Actively partner with the Facilities Operation team to foster communication and collaboration, including assisting and/or advising Facilities Operation team members on automation projects throughout campus.
• Good personal and customer service skills are required to interact with building occupants, engineers, architects, project managers both in house and consultants, departmental representatives, maintenance shop personnel and contractors. The interaction with engineers, architects and project managers occurs periodically throughout the development of campus construction projects while contact with departmental representatives and maintenance shop personnel is an integral part of the daily routine.

Additional Responsibilities

• Ensure that the University is receiving the best value for its capital dollars for HVAC Controls.
• Ensure that existing controls and BAS networks operate at optimum efficiency.
• Stay current in the building HVAC control field and be able to innovatively apply new technologies in the pursuit of better environmental conditions that use minimal energy.
• Develop improvements in operations on an on-going basis while keeping abreast of new innovations in energy management systems.
• Train system operators on all hardware and software relating to HVAC control systems.
• Evaluate and analyze new product lines and make recommendations on their use on campus. 
• Act as liaison to resolve heating and air conditioning problems in buildings.

Essential Qualifications:

• A minimum of 10 years’ experience with environmental control and energy management systems in Laboratories, Vivarium’s, Clean Rooms, Data Centers, Libraries (including rare book and document preservation), Classrooms, Museums, Performing Arts Theatres, Natatoriums, Gymnasiums, Kitchens, Food Service, Residential Dormitories and Apartments is highly desirable.
• Strong analytical skills are needed to acquire building systems data, analyze it, and develop energy reduction strategies from the data.
• Ability to install and oversee installation of building automation systems, communication networks, computers and instrumentation hardware.
• Ability to install and oversee installation software algorithms for distributed controllers and maintain associated databases.
• Ability to coordinate maintenance and repair of hardware, including the purchase and repair of all central components and instrumentation.
• Demonstrated ability to assist with the design and installation of all types of HVAC systems in all buildings.
• Demonstrated ability to read and interpret blueprints and building HVAC designs including review of HVAC controls installation for new projects designed by outside consultants.
• Knowledge of HVAC systems with unsatisfactory operational performance and make comprehensive software changes to fix the problem and minimize energy use.
• Good organizational and communication skills with the ability to exercise sound judgment and make decisions independently.
• Excellent customer service skills are required to interact with facilities engineers, project managers, building occupants, maintenance personnel, and design professionals.
• Ability to work in a fast-paced environment that requires handling multiple tasks at a given time and rapidly adapting to changing priorities and schedules.
• Ability to work independently and handle multiple projects.
• Excellent analytical, organizational, problem solving and time management skills.
• Demonstrated ability to investigate multiple layers of distributed controls including hardware and software functions to exercise and analyze the correct sequence of operations.
• Demonstrated ability to solve controls problems by fine-tuning key aspects of a controller, setting up a temporary "work around fix" or implementing a permanent field change.
• Ability to respond to campus emergencies, including off hours as required.
• Be available for start-ups, shutdowns and other project requirements that may be off hours.
• Ability to troubleshoot and optimize large BAS IP and MTSP networks.
• Ability to utilize network troubleshooting tools.
• Proficient in modern controls systems, including Siemens, ALC, Distech and/or Niagara N4
• Stay current in the building control field and be able to research and apply innovative technologies in the pursuit of better environmental conditions that use minimal energy.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Siemens Master Programmer
• Siemens Master Operator
• Capable of programming modern control systems
• Capable of integrating devices of various protocols including BACnet, Lon and Modbus
• Technical / Trade School experience
• Project Management Experience and/or Certification
• Windows / Linux Server administration experience
• Certified Energy Manager Accreditation

Princeton University is an Equal Opportunity and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, disability status, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law.

The University considers factors such as (but not limited to) scope and responsibilities of the position, candidate's qualifications, work experience, education/training, key skills, market, collective bargaining agreements as applicable, and organizational considerations when extending an offer. The posted salary range represents the University's good faith and reasonable estimate for a full-time position; salaries for part-time positions are pro-rated accordingly.

If the salary range on the posted position shows an hourly rate, this is the baseline; the actual hourly rate may be higher, depending on the position and factors listed above.

The University also offers a comprehensive benefit program to eligible employees. Please see this link for more information.