Associate Director, Utilities Engineering

Job Description

The Associate Director of Utilities provides owner‑side leadership and technical governance for the design, integration, and delivery of utilities and associated infrastructure supporting large biopharmaceutical capital projects. The role serves as the Design Authority for black and clean utility systems, ensuring that the systems are designed to meet manufacturing requirements, GMP standards, reliability expectations, and regulatory compliance. The incumbent provides oversight of engineering contractor design activities and ensures effective integration between process systems, HVAC, automation, process equipment, and facility infrastructure.

Key systems include chillers, compressors, steam boilers, cooling towers, purified water, WFI, clean steam, and other utilities for pharmaceutical and biologics manufacturing capital projects of total value > $2B. The role also requires implementation of technology with AI and digital innovation teams such as the Factory of the Future. The incumbent will report to the Senior Director, Engineering in the Operations Transformation organization.

• Serve as the owner’s senior utilities system technical leader
• Lead the owner’s utilities team and provide technical oversight of engineering contractor design activities related to black and clean utilities
• Establish engineering standards and execution strategies for utility systems
• Lead technical strategy and engineering oversight for black utilities such as plant steam, chilled water, cooling water, compressed air, HVAC, glycol systems, potable water, vacuum systems, breathing air, and clean utilities such as nitrogen, process gases, purified water, WFI, clean steam, clean compressed air, process gases, CIP utility infrastructure
• Develop and maintain engineering standards, specifications, design guides, and best practices for utility systems
• Ensure harmonization and consistency of utility system design across global capital projects and manufacturing sites
• Provide technical leadership for selection, specification, integration, and lifecycle management of utility systems across all strategic capital projects
• Review and approve engineering deliverables including equipment datasheets, cause and effect matrices, control philosophy and narrative, P&IDs, utility system specifications, load and sizing calculations, piping, data sheets
• Ensure consistency of instrumentation architecture and implementation across global projects
• Support design reviews, HAZOPs, constructability reviews, FAT/SAT activities, and operational readiness assessments
• Support project planning, budgeting, negotiation, procurement strategies, and schedule development for instrumentation packages
• Review vendor submittals and ensure alignment with process, automation, cybersecurity, and GMP requirements
• Partner with automation and process control teams to ensure proper integration between field instrumentation, PLC/DCS/SCADA platforms, and manufacturing execution systems
• Support definition of control strategies, alarm management philosophy, and data integrity requirements
• Ensure field devices and instrumentation networks align with digitalization and smart manufacturing initiatives
• Ensure system design meets GMP, reliability, and operational requirements in addition to supporting contamination control, reliability and maintainability
• Lead instrumentation commissioning strategy and execution for process systems, clean utilities, and facility infrastructure
• Support development and review of commissioning plans, test scripts, turnover packages, and startup procedures
• Define the automation architecture and digital strategy for the project
• Lead the owner’s automation engineering team
• Provide oversight for design and implementation of distributed control systems (DCS), PLC‑based equipment control systems, batch automation systems, supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA), process control strategies
• Provide oversight for design and implementation of environmental monitoring systems and building automation systems
• Ensure automation supports reliable manufacturing operations and regulatory compliance
• Ensure compliance with data integrity and…