Director of Mission Critical
ACS Group · Austin, TX
Apply & track with Apply EdgeACS Group is headquartered in Las Vegas, NV and is a Texas Registered Engineering Firm delivering fire protection, life safety, and code consulting on the most technically complex projects in the industry. Mission critical and data center work is one of our fastest-growing markets, and we are building a practice to lead it rather than follow the national firms who currently dominate it. We prepare hazard mitigation analyses, building and fire code reviews, performance-based design reports, alternative means of compliance requests, and the engineering that carries them through AHJ approval, and we work with the major hyperscale, colocation, and enterprise players building this market.The Director of Mission Critical owns that practice. This is a dual-mandate role, weighted equally between winning work and delivering it: half business development, covering pipeline, client relationships, and revenue growth across hyperscale, colocation, enterprise, and edge accounts, and half technical operations, accountable for the quality, defensibility, and on-time delivery of every mission critical engagement ACS takes on. The Director reports to the Vice President of Engineering and works in close coordination with the COO on delivery capacity and the firm’s strategic accounts program.Business Development (approximately 50%)Own the mission critical pipeline: set the growth strategy for the segment, build and qualify opportunities, and carry the practice’s revenue and bookings targets.Grow strategic accounts: develop and deepen relationships with the major players in the market, including hyperscale owners, colocation operators, and enterprise clients, and with the design primes and MEP firms ACS delivers through.Coordinate channel boundaries: manage partner relationships where service overlap exists, including commissioning scope, so ACS grows the market without creating conflict. Resolve boundary questions directly before they reach a client.Lead pursuits: drive proposals, fee development, scoping, and contract negotiation for mission critical engagements, from single-building assessments to multi-site portfolio programs.Represent ACS externally: present at industry events, publish thought leadership, and position ACS’s modeling and mission critical capabilities as the proof of technical depth that differentiates the firm.Feed the strategic accounts program: apply the firm’s account tiering, planning, and health-tracking framework to mission critical clients and keep the CRM current as the system of record.Technical Operations (approximately 50%)Own delivery quality: accountable for the technical rigor, code defensibility, and schedule performance of every mission critical deliverable, including hazard mitigation analyses, building and fire code reviews, performance-based design reports, and alternative means of compliance requests, from concept through commissioning and operations support.Serve as senior technical authority: set the engineering direction on detection and suppression strategy (aspirating/very-early detection, clean agent, pre-action, and water mist trade-offs), battery/BESS and lithium-ion risk, smoke control, airflow reconciliation, and performance-based alternatives for hyperscale geometry. Serve as Engineer of Record where licensure and scope align.Lead fuel and power-system fire protection: direct the protection strategy for generators, gas turbines, fuel storage and distribution, and the modular and prefabricated structures that support continuous operation.Navigate the code basis: lead the firm’s positions on NFPA 855, NFPA 75, NFPA 72, NFPA 13, the IBC building code, the IFC, and NFPA 3/4 integrated testing and commissioning, and carry alternative means of compliance requests through AHJ negotiation and approval.Direct modeling-backed design: apply CFD and computational modeling (FDS/Pyrosim for fire and smoke, FLACS for battery off-gas explosion consequence) to turn prescriptive-code limits into defensible, performance-based design.Set campus-level strategy: support master planning and establish the fire protection basis of design and code strategy for hyperscale and AI-focused developments.Manage capacity and staffing: plan resourcing across concurrent mission critical projects with the COO, assign engineers to scope, and remove delivery bottlenecks before they affect the client.Develop the team and the standards: mentor engineers and consultants, build the bench that lets the segment scale, and develop the basis-of-design templates, engineering standards, and code-position library the practice runs on.Uphold technical excellence: lead design reviews and participate in the firm’s technical audit and peer-review program to keep sealed mission critical work defensible.Required QualificationsBachelor’s degree in Fire Protection Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, or a related field. M.S. in Fire Protection Engineering preferred.Licensed Professional Engineer (P.E.), with the ability to obtain licensure in additional states as project demand requires.10+ years of fire protection and life safety engineering experience, with a substantial and demonstrable record in mission critical or data center facilities.Deep working command of NFPA 855, NFPA 13, NFPA 72, NFPA 75, the IBC, and IFC Chapter 12, and the code framework governing data center detection, suppression, battery energy storage, and fuel systems.Proven business development results: pipeline ownership, client relationship growth, and revenue responsibility, not solely delivery.Experience serving as Engineer of Record and carrying accountability for sealed deliverables on complex projects.Willingness to travel to client sites, project sites, and industry events.Preferred QualificationsDirect experience with hyperscale or colocation owners and the design primes and MEP firms serving them.Performance-based design and computational modeling experience (FDS, Pathfinder, or FLACS), or the ability to direct a modeling team.Established relationships with authorities having jurisdiction in major data center markets and a record of successful AHJ negotiation.Experience building or scaling a practice area, including hiring, mentoring, and process development.What Success Looks LikeThe mission critical practice is a distinct, recognized ACS offering with a growing pipeline and repeat clients.ACS is winning work against the national firms in the segment on the strength of its technical depth.Mission critical deliverables are consistently on time, code-defensible, and delivered without quality escapes.A capable mission critical bench exists behind the Director, allowing the segment to scale without a single point of failure.About ACS GroupACS Group is a fire protection engineering and code consulting firm with offices in Austin, Boston, Las Vegas, and Salt Lake City. We serve mission critical and data center, battery and EV manufacturing, industrial special hazards, and combustible dust markets. We pair hands-on engineering with computational modeling to deliver design that stands up to scrutiny, and we invest in our engineers’ growth as deliberately as we pursue our clients.Reports to: Vice President of Engineering