Open Position | Energy and Commissioning (Cx) Engineer

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For more details on our hiring process, please take a moment to read Cx Associates' Commitment to Applicants.

Cx Associates is seeking to hire an Engineer with at least 5 years of experience in HVAC or building systems engineering. This position requires some familiarity with commercial construction, building commissioning, general energy efficiency, spreadsheet analysis, and building codes and testing standards. We’re looking for someone who is self-directed; highly skilled in Word and Excel; works efficiently; is a strong verbal and written communicator; and is collaborative and committed to sustainability.

Cx Associates is a dynamic, growing, mission-driven consulting engineering firm in Burlington, VT looking to add someone who’s keen to work on exciting projects that save energy, reduce carbon footprints, and make buildings better for a large portfolio of clients in the Northeast. We’re a small firm that offers a relaxed, flexible, open (and dog friendly!) working environment. We believe in a solid work/life balance, offer a competitive salary, excellent benefits, opportunities for advancement and a staff-focused workplace.

Location: Burlington, VT (hybrid)

Travel Requirements: This position requires a valid drivers’ license and semi-regular field work (once or twice a week) and travel within a one to four-hour radius depending on where the candidate is located. Occasional overnight travel (roughly 1-4 nights per month) within New England and New York State may also be required. This position is for the unique individual who enjoys both desk work and fieldwork.

Please note: We are unable to offer any type of visa sponsorship or support. Candidates must be permanently eligible to work in the United States.

About Cx Associates

Cx Associates is a busy, mission-driven consulting engineering firm headquartered in Burlington, VT with a second office in Portland, ME. We’re a small but driven team of 17 dedicated to engineering better buildings for people and planet. What started with building commissioning in 1994, Cx Associates has since grown to offer a suite of services for new and existing buildings, energy management, and efficiency programs.

We are a collaborative organization, not a top-down corporation. We believe in identifying how we can improve as individuals and as a firm, and we support one another in furthering our skills and knowledge. Cx Associates is a team-oriented community that provides room for individuals to shine while maintaining a strong, cohesive environment.

Who We're Looking For

You’ve got some mechanical design experience or experience troubleshooting mechanical systems in the field. You have at least 5 years of experience designing commercial HVAC systems and controls, including HVAC design, systems optimization, and energy efficiency analysis. Alternatively, you’ve spent a similar amount of time in diagnosing and correcting operational issues with building mechanical systems and/or performing building commissioning.

You’re curious. You’re a creative problem-solver who excels at finding innovative solutions to problems. You are an intellectually curious individual who is committed to continuous learning and staying abreast of developments in the field. You’re not afraid to look for and learn new solutions that you think could benefit the organization and execute them.

You know your way around software. You’re highly proficient in Excel – you’ve mastered basic formulas and several of the more advanced formulas and know how to build useful Excel calculators to help answer that nagging engineering math question that suddenly seems to keep coming up on every project. You know how to trace formulas, troubleshoot and fix errors, and verify correct data output when something goes awry. You’ve used spreadsheets to run relatively complex analyses and boil down large amounts of data. Apart from Excel, you know your way around common office software like MS 365 and/or Google Workspace, PDF reading and editing software, etc. You may have experience with modeling software like Open Studio or eQUEST.

You’re a demonstrated skilled written communicator. Even though most of your day will be spent doing engineering, our work often includes a lot of writing. You’re adept at different types of writing, from professional emails to proposals to technical reports. You can keep your audience in mind and tailor your style (more/less technical) to reach your reader most effectively.

You’re self-motivated. You’re the kind of person who takes initiative to insert yourself when you see opportunities to improve internal process efficiency. You keep the proverbial monkey off of other people’s backs and tackle things yourself, constructively seeking input when needed.

You have a sense of humor. We take our work very seriously, but we also like to have fun. You’re someone who can get along with a lot of different types of personalities and people with different backgrounds, and you enjoy the occasional viral cat video.

You’re eco-conscious (or at least eco-curious). We try to walk the sustainability talk at Cx Associates. If you’re taking any steps to make your life “greener,” we’d love to hear about it. This may take the form of opting for public transit or your bike when possible, composting, being an activist for environmental causes, or taking other steps to lessen your environmental footprint.

You’re trustworthy. You have stellar references and a clean record.

Bonus points. You have experience  managing projects, designing BAS controls, and/or you are in the process of earning a professional certification like a P.E., CCP, BCxP, etc. You have experience in healthcare and steam boiler plants.

Things You Might Do

Cx Associates is a small but growing business, with dozens of active projects. The engineer will have to juggle a lot of balls at once. Here are some examples of things you might do:

• Work with one of our senior engineers to test a new 1000-ton chiller plant at a new $500m hospital facility, figure out ways to make it run more efficiently, and calculate the annual energy savings
• Use energy meters to collect data at a large university student center facility to analyze usage, and develop and quantify recommendations for reducing consumption
• Collaborate on troubleshooting an ailing heating plant that can’t keep up with demand despite seeming to have more capacity than necessary based on nameplate data
• Write a commissioning plan and functional performance test protocols
• Visit a 50-year-old industrial facility with an equally dated HVAC system alongside a Senior Engineer to find ways to make cost-effective improvements and save the owner energy
• Contribute to the design of a focused HVAC retrofit for a small hospital with failing systems. Your design would include field work, drawings, scopes of work, specifications, and BAS sequences of operations, typically in collaboration with a Senior Engineer.
• Participate in a stakeholder meeting for a new operating room to get input on all the needs of the users of the space to ensure it not only is energy efficient but also caters to the special needs of health care facility occupants
• Help the owner of a medium-size office building in our community figure out what’s wrong with her cooling system by diagnosing problems and looking for ways to not only fix issues but to make the entire system more efficient
• Use energy modeling software to model a 300,000 SF dormitory and make recommendations for increasing energy efficiency to the owner
• Use our analysis spreadsheet tools to examine building energy meter data and make determinations on where to focus energy saving recommendations
• Continually review your effort with respect to a project’s overall budget and be conscious of your scopes of work, helping to ensure projects come in under or at budget.
• Find out what’s wrong with a building’s control system and develop the necessary modifications to make the building operate better and use less energy
• Write and cost estimate a winning proposal and scope of work with the help of a Senior Engineer for a new $25m office building
• Perform technical desk reviews of the energy savings of utility energy efficiency program installations
• Write retrocommissioning and commissioning reports, detailing the performed work and its energy impact

The Whole Package

Cx Associates cares about its staff and recognizes that they are the firm’s most important and valuable resource. We believe in a solid work/life balance not often found at engineering consulting firms. We encourage our team members to use their personal time. And while we recognize that we all have the occasional crunch period, we also know that regularly working tons of overtime can actually be counterproductive. Therefore, we provide:

• Competitive salary
• Excellent health care coverage (CxA pays 85% for individual plan premiums, plus 50% of coverage for additional family members)
  • Also includes company-funded HRA, which pays 85% of plan deductibles.
• Health plan includes telemedicine service
• Free Employee Assistance Program (EAP)
• Flexible hybrid work-from-home policy
• 401(k) Plan with 3% Safe Harbor contribution and annual profit sharing
• Green incentives program with free bus passes, CSA grants, Annual Carbon Reduction Incentive Lottery, and credits for bike supplies/tune ups or new walking shoes
• Company-paid life insurance, and short- and long-term disability insurance
• 30 days of paid time off annually, increasing on the 4^th and 8^th anniversaries of your hire
• Support for professional development

Please see below for additional knowledge, skill, and ability requirement for the Engineer Position.

Job Summary

This position requires familiarity with HVAC and/or electrical systems, energy efficiency, and spreadsheet analysis. Candidates should have a four-year college degree and at least 5 years of HVAC or electrical systems experience. We’re looking for someone who is self-directed; highly skilled in Word and Excel; outgoing and efficient; a strong verbal and written communicator; excellent at multi-tasking; and collaborative and committed to sustainability.

This person has strong communication and interpersonal skills. The engineer will work closely with other engineers on our staff.

This position requires occasional field work and travel within a two to four-hour radius from Burlington, Vermont. Occasional overnight travel within New England and New York State may also be required. This position is for the unique individual who enjoys both desk work and fieldwork.

The ideal candidate is a strong writer and editor and is committed to Cx Associates’ mission. They should have a demonstrated personal belief in sustainability and eco-friendliness and is an evangelist for others in the firm to ensure the firm walks the talk.

Job Responsibilities

• Provide building commissioning, measurement and verification services for mechanical systems in new and existing buildings. Tasks include:
• Plan review
• Energy analysis
• Development and administration of construction checklists and functional performance tests
• Operator training verification
• Metering measurement, verification and analysis of HVAC, electrical and other systems
• Building modeling and spreadsheet analysis
• Preparation of systems manuals
• Report preparation
• Project management and other duties as assigned.

Key Knowledge Requirements

• Familiarity with commercial building energy using systems
• Mechanical/HVAC background and familiarity with all building energy systems including electrical and domestic hot water
• Familiarity/comfort with DDC controls
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills
• Ability to organize, analyze, and draw significant conclusions from disparate sources
• Strong technical writing and presentation skills including: reports, factsheets, and guides
• Experience with managing and analyzing large data sets
• Excellent Excel and spreadsheet management and analysis skills
• Develop, understand and meet project objectives, scope, budget, and schedule
• Familiarity/comfort with electric test instruments a plus
• Knowledge of HVAC sizing tools a plus
• Experience with eQUEST/Open Studio modeling software a plus

Key Skill & Ability Requirements

• Technical writing and presentation skills including: reports, factsheets, guides, white papers
• Anticipating and identifying complex problems, finding and reviewing relevant information to develop and evaluate options and implement solutions
• Analyzing energy efficiency that results from optimization of systems and equipment
• Analyzing and synthesizing information from disparate sources and drawing conclusions
• Organizing, planning, and prioritizing work tasks
• Updating and using relevant knowledge (keeping up-to-date technically and applying new knowledge to the job)
• Teamwork, interpersonal communication, and creative/innovative thinking
• Personal initiative/motivation
• Attention to detail
• Critical thinking and intellectual curiosity
• Client/business development
• Computer skills, including MS Word and Excel; experience with eQUEST/Open Studio modeling software an asset
• Ability to lift 50 pounds and climb ladders to building roofs

Preferred Education & Experience     

Candidates should possess:

• A four-year college degree, preferably in mechanical or electrical engineering and 5 years’ experience in HVAC mechanical engineering, building systems design, building commissioning, or an equivalent combination of education and experience. We will consider candidates with degrees in other subjects such as architecture, physics, environmental engineering, or other science. 
• Experience in one or more of the following areas strongly preferred:
• HVAC design
• Energy efficiency analysis
• Building commissioning
• Energy program measurement and verification
• Building energy management

To Apply

Please fill and submit the form below, including an attachment for your resume. You must answer all the required questions. In the event of technical difficulties, please email eric[at]cx-assoc[dot]com.

Cx Associates is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate against any employee or applicant for employment based on race, color, religion, national origin, age, gender, gender identity, sex, ancestry, mental or physical disability, genetic information, sexual orientation, veteran status, or military status.