Lead Fire Protection and Safety Engineer

Lead Fire Protection and Life Safety Engineer About Giga

Giga builds the electrical infrastructure that powers the modern world. We manufacture transformers, switchboards, and modular data centers for customers across the United States and the globe. Together, our team combines fresh perspectives with deep industry experience to solve real-world problems for our customers. We move fast and think practically. If you're ready to make an impact in an industry that matters, we're looking for people like you.

• The Pace: You will manage projects moving faster than anywhere else in the industry.
• The Impact: You are the person who turns "concepts" into "contracts" and "permits."
• The Team: Work with a world-class group of engineers defining the future of AI infrastructure.

What you'll do

As Lead Fire Protection Engineer
, you'll serve as the technical authority for all life safety and fire suppression systems across Giga's manufacturing and data center product lines. You'll own the Fire Protection Plan of Record (POR), ensuring that our standardized designs for high-density compute environments are compliant with NFPA and IBC while optimizing for asset protection and business continuity.

This role requires deep expertise in special hazard suppression, complex alarm sequencing, and battery energy storage safety. You'll design fire protection systems that protect billions of dollars in critical AI infrastructure while enabling the rapid deployment model that sets Giga apart.

You'll navigate the unique challenges of modular data centers—from Double-Interlock Pre-Action systems to clean agent gaseous suppression, from lithium-ion battery risks to complex mechanical and electrical interlocks. Your designs will be replicated across hundreds of facilities, making standardization, reliability, and code compliance absolutely critical.

Where you'll work

If based outside of our Houston, Long Beach or San Francisco hubs, this role will be based remotely from your home office. You must be willing to occasionally travel to one of our hub offices 3 days out of the month.

Responsibilities

• Define standardized fire protection designs for Giga's modular data center product line, ensuring compliance with NFPA and IBC across all deployments
• Design and specify critical environment suppression including Double-Interlock
• Pre-Action systems and Clean Agent gaseous suppression (FK-5-1-12/NOVEC 1230) for high-value compute areas
• Execute rigorous hydraulic calculations to size piping, pumps, and standpipes, ensuring adequate water supply and pressure for high-challenge fire loads
• Develop suppression and containment strategies for Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS) and Lithium-Ion risks, ensuring compliance with NFPA 855 and managing explosion control requirements
• Engineer detection strategies for modular environments ranging from spot-type smoke detectors to linear heat detection or beam detection, balancing cost, reliability, and code compliance
• Create Cause and Effect matrices (I/O Matrix) for Fire Alarm Control Panels, coordinating complex interlocks with Mechanical (AHU shutdown, damper closure) and Electrical (EPO, shunt trip) systems
• Engineer audible/visual notification appliance layouts meeting NFPA 72 intelligibility and visibility requirements in high-noise industrial environments
• Execute egress modeling and occupant load calculations per NFPA 101 and IBC Chapter 10, validating exit widths, travel distances, and emergency lighting for modular and campus layouts
• Interpret and apply NFPA 75 (IT Equipment), NFPA 76 (Telecommunications), NFPA 13, and NFPA 72 across all fire protection design work
• Conduct technical discussions with Fire Marshals and insurance carriers (FM Global/AXA XL), negotiating performance-based design alternatives when prescriptive code limits innovation
• Generate fire protection drawing sets, hydraulic calculation reports, fire alarm sequence matrices, life safety plans, and code compliance report

Requirements

• Professional Engineer (PE) in Fire Protection Engineering required
• 7+ years of experience in mission-critical, industrial, or semiconductor facility design
• Expert-level command of NFPA 13 (Installation of Sprinkler…