Fire & Life Safety Principal Engineer

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:' https://www.hdrinc.com/our-story' 

Each and every role throughout our organization makes a difference in our ability to change the world for the better. Read further to learn how you could help make great things possible not only in your community, but around the world. 

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 and shapes the spaces where people work, connect, and thrive. 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. We bring together mechanical, electrical, structural, and civil engineering experts to solve complex design challenges with precision, creativity, and collaboration. Whether you're optimizing energy efficiency, integrating resilient systems, or engineering the backbone of next-generation facilities, your contributions will help define the future of the built environment. This isn’t just a job, it’s a chance to lead innovation, engineer impact, and build a legacy of excellence.

Fire & Life Safety Engineering Principal

Principal Engineers are leaders in the practice who influence culture, morale, and recruiting as well as provide leadership in the pursuit and delivery of work. A Principal Engineer not only has deep engineering expertise in their discipline, but they understand how cross discipline teams’ function. They couple that understanding with leadership and communication abilities to positively impact the success of the business. The behaviors represented by Engineering Principals are indicative to our staff, clients, and recruits of the behaviors and characteristics HDR rewards.

Principal Engineers have a significant impact on winning work for HDR – both for the BES 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 – they foster relationships that make people want to work with us.

Principal Engineers are expected to help develop scope, schedule, and fee for projects. They must communicate regarding the pursuits they are leading with operational leadership to address staffing, expertise requirements, and business needs. Principal Engineers help us identify how to engage the right people in the right work in alignment with our strategic goals: “differentiating ourselves in our markets by amplifying our collective talent and knowledge”.

Project Success

Principal Engineers 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 Principal Engineer needs to be a conceptual thinker who can engage and challenge our architectural designers and engineering team during the early stages of projects to inform design. They should leverage our integrated practice to add value to our project delivery process and lead engineering teams to deliver well-coordinated, high-quality designs to our clients. Principal Engineers are expected to not only provide leadership for their discipline but act more broadly as leaders in our practice. The role requires a passion for maximizing high-performance design within the project constraints. They are the team members who proactively look out for all BES disciplines on project teams to elevate design while ensuring that scope, schedule, and budget are understood and respected by the team and concerns are communicated to project management in a clear and timely manner.                                                             

Culture, Morale & Recruiting

Principal Engineers are leaders in the company that exemplify the company culture. They demonstrate expectations of how project teams' function and emphasize collaboration and design excellence. These individuals are responsible for mentoring and building the next generation of leadership at HDR by developing technical, client and business acumen in others.

Principals recognize gaps in our expertise and project teams. They identify ways to fill those gaps by mentoring junior staff, identifying where we can shift or train staff, or identifying where we need to hire additional expertise. Principals network in the local community – leveraging their relationships to identify talent and recruit for HDR. Engineers in this role are contributing to BES’s strategy to develop expertise and strategy required to build a successful engineering practice.

Principal Engineers represent HDR through their participation in the professional and local community. They are expected to represent HDR in the engineering community, participate in speaking engagements, author white papers and technical publications and participate on industry and community boards.

Preferred Qualifications

• Bachelors or Masters Degree in Engineering.

• Advanced Levels of NFPA, ICC Certifications or other specialized credentials related to the field of Fire & Life Safety

• Design experience large complex buildings.

• Local and national industry relationships.

• Excellent leadership, communication, and organizational skills.

• Additional accreditations and certifications beyond professional licensure is highly desirable.

• Preference is given to local candidates

• Previous experience with an engineering consulting firm