Engineering & Project Development Manager

About Thrive Buildings

Thrive Buildings is a leader in delivering airflow optimization, energy efficiency, and demand response solutions to complex buildings, including laboratories, vivariums, and cleanrooms. We work with leading universities and pharmaceutical companies to reduce carbon emissions, lower operating costs, improve building performance, and unlock energy flexible via demand response and battery assets.

We are hiring an Engineering & Project Development Manager to help turn early-stage opportunities into technically sound, financially compelling, and executable projects. This is a highly visible role at the intersection of engineering, sales, product, project delivery, and business growth. The right person will not only develop projects; they will help build the technical operating system that allows us to scale.

Role Overview

The Engineering & Project Development Manager will lead the technical development of projects before purchase order. This person will take building drawings, BMS information, utility data, field observations, controls sequences, and other available information and convert them into clear scopes of work, energy models, savings estimates, budget pricing, and technical narratives.

This role is ideal for someone who enjoys solving complex building problems, working with incomplete information, and translating technical analysis into practical, executable projects. The role is both hands-on and strategic. In the near term, this person will develop projects and support sales opportunities. Over time, they will help improve the tools, templates, standards, and automation that make project development faster, more accurate, and more scalable.

Key Responsibilities

Project Development & Technical Scoping

• Review mechanical drawings, controls drawings, BMS information, utility data, airflow data, and existing building documentation.
• Identify project opportunities, technical risks, implementation constraints, and required clarifications.
• Translate complex building information into clear technical narratives for clients, sales teams, engineers, and implementation teams.
• Develop conceptual designs and project approaches that are technically sound, practical to implement, and financially compelling.
• Support site walks, field assessments, and discovery meetings with clients and internal teams.

Energy Modeling, Savings Analysis & Financial Development

• Build energy models and savings estimates for proposed projects.
• Support budget pricing, ROM estimates, vendor coordination, and subcontractor pricing.
• Work with internal teams to validate assumptions, refine costs, and improve gross margin accuracy.
• Support utility incentive and rebate applications where applicable.
• Help define measurement and verification approaches using building analytics, BMS data, and other available data sources.

Sales & Client Support

• Participate in client meetings to explain project scope, savings methodology, technical assumptions, risks, and implementation approach.
• Support proposal development, presentations, technical exhibits, and scope documentation.
• Work closely with sales leadership to prioritize opportunities and move projects efficiently from early-stage concept to contract.

Process, Tools & Automation

• Partner with Product Management and internal engineering leadership to improve project development workflows.
• Help standardize scopes, savings models, pricing tools, assumptions, templates, and technical review processes.
• Support the use of AI, analytics, software, and structured data to improve project development speed, consistency, and quality.

Cross-Functional Leadership

• Collaborate with Sales, Product Management, Project Management, Engineering, Operations, Manufacturing, Technical Support, and external partners.
• Act as a technical bridge between customer needs, sales commitments, and project execution realities.
• Contribute to technical standards that may eventually support organic growth, new hires, and potential acquisition integration.

What Success Looks Like

A successful person in this role will:

· Turn incomplete building information into clear project scopes and savings models.

· Increase the speed and quality of project development.

· Improve proposal consistency and reduce technical rework.

· Help sales teams close more technically complex opportunities.

· Improve confidence in budget pricing and gross margin assumptions.

· Build tools and processes that allow the company to scale.

· Become a trusted technical voice with clients and internal stakeholders.

Ideal Background

We are open to a range of experience levels. The right candidate may be an experienced engineer ready to lead a function, or a high-upside earlier-career professional with strong technical judgment, analytical ability, and a desire to grow. The ideal candidate is technically curious, practical, and highly comfortable in real buildings. They are a technical problem solver who can communicate with executives, facility teams, engineers, contractors, and internal stakeholders.

Strong candidates may come from:

• Commissioning or retro-commissioning firms
• Building controls / BAS firms
• ESCOs or energy services companies
• HVAC / MEP consulting engineering firms
• Building analytics or energy analytics companies
• Owner’s engineering or facilities engineering teams
• Lab, healthcare, cleanroom, pharma, university, or critical environment HVAC backgrounds

Required Qualifications

• Mechanical engineering, architectural engineering, environmental engineering, or related technical degree.
• Interest in AI, automation, process improvement, software tools, or workflow design.

Preferred Qualifications

• Professional Engineer license or interest in pursuing one.
• Experience with laboratory, vivarium, cleanroom, healthcare, pharmaceutical, or other critical environment HVAC systems.
• Experience with BAS platforms such as Siemens, Schneider Electric, Johnson Controls, Honeywell, Automated Logic, Tridium/Niagara, or similar.
• Experience with utility incentive programs and measurement & verification.
• Experience developing scopes, estimates, savings calculations, or investment-grade audits.
• Familiarity with SkySpark, fault detection and diagnostics, building analytics, or trend data analysis.
• Experience mentoring junior engineers or helping build internal standards.

Growth Opportunity

This role has significant growth potential. In the first year, the person will serve as a hands-on technical project development lead, supporting sales and developing scopes, models, pricing, and technical narratives. Over time, this person may help build and lead a broader project development function, including standards, tools, automation, junior engineers, technical QA, and acquisition integration.

As the company grows organically and through potential acquisitions, this role may evolve into a leadership position responsible for how technical project development is performed across the platform.

Compensation & Salary

• Competitive base salary
• Performance-based bonus
• Potential long-term growth opportunity as the company scales
• Remote work flexibility
• Paid time off and company holidays
• Fully reimbursed travel
• Opportunity to work on high-impact decarbonization and energy efficiency projects
• Exposure to leading universities, pharmaceutical companies, laboratories, healthcare facilities, and complex commercial buildings
• Opportunity to help shape a growing business at an important stage of expansion

Location & Travel

This is a remote role. Ideal candidates will be located in the Northeast corridor, particularly near Philadelphia, New York City, Boston, Washington, D.C., or another major airport / Amtrak-accessible market. Travel is expected to average approximately 20–30%, primarily for site walks, project discovery, customer meetings, and technical assessments.