Engineering Principal

At HDR, our employee-owners are fully engaged in creating a welcoming environment where each of us is valued and respected, a place where everyone is empowered to bring their authentic selves and novel ideas to work every day. As we foster a culture of inclusion throughout our company and within our communities, we constantly ask ourselves:
What is our impact on the world? Watch Our Story:  Each and every role throughout our organization makes a difference in our ability to change the world for the better. We believe building engineering is more than systems and structures, it’s about powering progress and enabling innovation. As part of HDR’s Building Engineering Services Group, you’ll help design the critical infrastructure that supports the digital age, from high-performance data centers driving the future of AI to dynamic commercial environments.

Your work will directly support technological advancement, sustainability, and human experience. This isn’t just a job, it’s a chance to lead innovation, engineer impact, and build a legacy of excellence.

Engineering Principals are leaders in the practice who influence culture, morale, and recruiting as well as provide leadership in the pursuit and delivery of work. An Engineering Principal not only has deep engineering expertise in their discipline, but they also understand how cross-discipline teams function. They bring that understanding with leadership and communication abilities to positively impact the success of the business.

Engineering Principals have a significant impact on winning work for HDR - both for the Building Engineering Services (BES) Business Group (BG) and partner BGs. They have business development skills to identify opportunities and take the initiative to be responsive and establish relationships to win work. They promote and represent BES to our internal and external clients - fostering relationships that make people want to work with us.

There are three ways in which BES wins work and Engineering Principals contribute to each:

Engineering Principals understand the building design process in the market sectors in which they practice. They facilitate clear communication and provide leadership for the entire design team. A conceptual thinker, they engage and challenge our architectural designers and engineering team during the early stages of projects to inform design. Leveraging our integrated practice, they add value to the project delivery process and lead engineering teams to deliver well-coordinated, high-quality designs to our clients.

Their leadership directly impacts HDR’s financial plan through protecting client relationships and ensuring scope, schedule, and budget are respected.

Engineering Principals exemplify the company culture. They demonstrate expectations for how project teams function and emphasize collaboration and design excellence. They mentor and build the next generation of leadership by developing technical, client and business acumen in others. They identify gaps in expertise and project teams, fill them through mentoring, training, or hiring, and network locally to attract talent. They also represent HDR in the engineering community, speak at events, author white papers, and serve on industry boards.

• The role of Engineering Principal is a progression beyond Senior Engineer or Subject Matter Expert. But this is not a recognition that all Senior Engineers can expect to earn with time as the next step on the ladder.
• Competencies are not solely based upon technical skills.
• Subject Matter Expert / Senior Engineer
  • Exemplary technical performance and expertise.
  • Hold the resume required to win work.
  • In-depth market sector expertise.
  • Interview performance to win work.
  • Mentor to junior staff.
  • Execute projects…