Chiller Engineering Manager (onsite)

About Johnson Controls

Johnson Controls, a global leader in thermal management, mission-critical building systems, energy efficiency, and decarbonization, helps customers use energy more productively, reduce carbon emissions, and operate with the precision and resilience required in rapidly expanding industries such as data centers, healthcare, pharmaceuticals, advanced manufacturing, and higher education.

For more than 140 years, Johnson Controls has delivered performance where it really matters. Backed by advanced technology, lifecycle services and an industry-leading field organization, we elevate customer performance, turn goals into real-world results and help move society forward.

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What you will do

Johnson Controls is seeking an experienced engineering leader to serve as Manager of the Product Engineering team focused on Oil Bearing Water Cooled Centrifugal Chillers, based at the Johnson Controls Advanced Development Engineering Center in New Freedom, PA. This role carries direct accountability for the engineering performance of the oil bearing water-cooled centrifugal chiller product lines — including both new product development and continuous engineering — and serves as the hands-on technical authority for this segment of the centrifugal chiller portfolio.

The Chiller Engineering Manager leads a team of product engineers focused on oil bearing centrifugal compressor and system technology. This role leads a team who develop, improve, and sustain the WCC oil bearing products. You and your team will resolve issues in the factories and the field. You and your team will work to make WCC oil bearing products more reliable and more competitive (reducing cost, improving performance), with a special focus on the data center market. Your team will lead design hardware changes, controls changes and testing and unit and subsystems level in the JADEC test lab. Your team will lead the research and development of WCC oil bearing chillers with new technologies. Product Engineers are the glue that keeps everything together, driving other related teams/departments forward to do what's best for the product.

This position is onsite based at our Advanced Development and Engineering Center located in New Freedom, PA. Candidates must be commuting distance to the facility, or open to relocation. Various relocation packages are available.

How you will do it

Technical Leadership & Product Knowledge

• Apply strong technical grounding in thermodynamics, heat transfer, refrigerant system behavior, oil lubrication systems, compressor aerodynamics, rotor dynamics, and fluid flow to provide credible technical direction to product engineers and to independently evaluate design and field data.

• Develop and maintain thorough working knowledge of the WCC product lines — compressor architecture, refrigerant circuit configuration, oil management systems, product history, and known reliability drivers — sufficient to lead reviews, disposition issues, and guide engineers with minimal external support.

• Serve as the primary technical resource for direct reports and the organization on oil bearing centrifugal chiller technology; engage substantively in design reviews, failure analysis sessions, and customer technical discussions.

• Maintain familiarity with product configuration tools (EOM, CSPS) and leverage that knowledge to understand option interactions, engineering constraints, and platform impacts when evaluating changes.

Engineering Leadership & Team Development

• Lead, develop, and performance-manage a team of product engineers; set clear expectations, provide regular coaching, identify growth opportunities, and build technical capability across the group.

• Foster a culture of ownership, technical rigor, and cross-functional accountability aligned to business priorities and engineering standards.

• Identify skill gaps and resource needs within the team; communicate staffing and capability requirements to the leadership when required

• Serve as a daily accessible manager by being present, engaged, and able to provide meaningful technical guidance and remove obstacles for direct reports.

New Product Development

• Lead NPI programs for the product lines from concept through production sign-off, ensuring designs are thermodynamically sound, mechanically robust, manufacturable, and standards-compliant.

• Drive use of structured design methods (DFMEA, tolerance analysis, DFM, DVP&R) at each stage gate and hold engineers accountable to design review discipline.

• Coordinate with Product Management, Manufacturing Engineering, and Procurement on requirements translation, tooling readiness, supplier qualification, and quality controls at launch.

• Communicate NPI status, risks, and decisions clearly to upper management and cross-functional stakeholders; escalate issues proactively before they impact program timing.

Continuous Engineering & Product Health

• Own the day-to-day technical health of the product portfolio — field feedback, service-driven changes, reliability improvements, regulatory updates, and cost reduction.

• Partner with Quality, Service, Product Technical Support (PTS), and manufacturing operations to drive resolution of field issues, production disruptions, and reliability concerns through sound engineering corrective action.

• Manage engineering change workload for the team; triage incoming issues, prioritize against development capacity, and communicate trade-offs to leadership.

• Govern ECN quality for the team: ensure engineering changes are technically complete, thoroughly documented, cross-functionally coordinated, and correctly effectuated in SAP/PLM.

Cross-Functional Collaboration & Customer Engagement

• Work closely with Manufacturing Engineering, Quality, Supply Chain, Product Management, and PTS to move issues to resolution and ensure engineering decisions are aligned with factory and field realities.

• Engage directly with customers on technical matters related to the product lines; represent the engineering organization professionally and build customer confidence.

• Participate in cross-functional reviews and program milestones; communicate engineering status clearly to peers, leadership, and other functions.

Technical Standards, Process & Quality

• Uphold and enforce engineering standards, design review expectations, and release quality requirements within the team.

• Lead or oversee root cause analysis on field and factory failures; ensure corrective actions are technically defensible, documented, and verified in the field.

• Ensure product and process compliance with applicable regulatory and certification requirements (AHRI, UL, ASME, CE, applicable refrigerant regulations).

What you will need

Required

• Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering, or closely related discipline

• 8+ years of experience in HVAC, refrigeration, rotating machinery, or related capital equipment engineering

• 3+ years of experience leading and/or developing a team of engineers — setting direction, coaching on technical problems, and managing performance

• Hands-on experience with centrifugal compressor systems, refrigerant circuits, and chiller industry experience — with sufficient depth to evaluate design decisions and failure data.

• Strong technical foundation in thermodynamics, heat transfer, and refrigerant systems

• Experience executing engineering changes in a manufacturing environment: BOM management, drawing control, change control governance, and cross-functional ECN coordination.

Preferred

• Master's degree

• Oil bearing experience within the chiller industry

• Background with AHRI, UL, ASME, CE, or applicable certification processes

• Six Sigma GB/BB

• Lean product development and stage-gate NPI experience

• Familiarity with field failure analysis, PTS support workflows, and development of field corrective actions

• Experience with compressor aerodynamics, rotor dynamics, and oil system design

HIRING SALARY RANGE: $120,000 - $160,000 (Salary to be determined by the education, experience, knowledge, skills, and abilities of the applicant, internal equity, and alignment with market data.) This role offers a competitive Bonus plan that will take into account individual, group, and corporate performance. This position includes a competitive benefits package. The posted salary range reflects the target compensation for this role. However, we recognize that exceptional candidates may bring unique skills and experiences that exceed the typical profile. If you believe your background warrants consideration beyond the stated range, we encourage you to apply. To support an efficient and fair hiring process, we may use technology assisted tools, including artificial intelligence (AI), to help identify and evaluate candidates. All hiring decisions are ultimately made by human reviewers. For details, please visit the About Us tab on the Johnson Controls Careers site at