Building Engineering Lead (London or Zurich)

The Building Engineering Lead will be Optiml’s senior Subject Matter Expert (SME) for building engineering, responsible for how buildings, systems, and costs are represented, structured and reasoned about across Optiml’s products and deliveries. You will define the engineering logic, assumptions, and accuracy levels that underpin Optiml’s product tiers, ensuring our strategies are technically credible, scalable across geographies, and defensible with enterprise clients. Our ambition is to handle any building typology, up to complex, large‑scale assets, with appropriate and transparent accuracy.

Working across Product, Delivery, and Engineering, you will translate real‑world building engineering practice — including MEP/HVAC systems, digital twins, building physics, Capex structures, norms, and typologies — into clear frameworks that guide product development, client delivery, and long‑term roadmap decisions.

About Optiml: Optiml is revolutionizing real estate with our Real Estate Decision Intelligence (REDI) software—a new class of decision technology that embeds AI to help decarbonize buildings while optimizing asset financial performance. We are an ETH Zurich spin‑off that launched its first product in April 2024 and has since been scaling across Europe and the United States, earning major industry recognition, including the 2024 ULI Europe PropTech of the Year and 2024 ZIA PropTech of the Year awards. We are backed by top‑tier US and European investors, including Innovation Endeavors (the fund of former Google CEO Eric Schmidt), Planet A, BitStone, and Kompas, who support our mission to empower real estate investors, asset managers, and consulting partners to deliver a cost‑effective, value‑preserving transition to Net Zero. As of early 2026, we are expanding our team to broaden our product lines and scale operational delivery for a growing global client base.

Responsibilities

• Building Representation & Engineering Strategy: Lead the development of Optiml’s building engineering coverage across asset classes and geographies. Ensure accuracy and reliability of engineering strategies across the full building Capex scope, covering all components, systems, and typologies. Define high‑fidelity building representations, including room‑level zoning and building physics, equipment‑level modelling of MEP and HVAC systems, large and complex building typologies, and localised, audit‑grade strategies aligned to regional data, regulations, and frameworks. Collaborate closely with Building Representation (including Energy Simulation) and Strategy Development teams to ensure consistency between engineering logic and product outputs. Shape the building engineering strategy underpinning Optiml’s product tiers and workflows, defining required level of detail and input requirements, accuracy expectations and acceptable tolerances, system boundaries and modelling scope, applicability across asset classes, geographies, and data‑quality levels, and alignment with UK RIBA stages (or equivalent frameworks). Act as a subject‑matter expert in best‑in‑class building engineering practices, coaching teams to balance technical credibility with scalability, data availability, product roadmap constraints, and commercial feasibility.
• Standards, Norms & Methodological Governance: Establish and operationalise building component and HVAC engineering standards within Optiml’s products. Ensure alignment with relevant standards and frameworks, including ISO, ASHRAE, DIN, SIA, and equivalents across UK RIBA stages or international phases. Define, document, and maintain methodological guidelines, assumptions, and reference structures used across products and client deliveries (e.g. baselines, boundary conditions, defaults, and documentation). Support the strategic sourcing and enrichment of localised contextual data, including construction costs, energy tariffs, local policies and BEPS requirements, and grid emission factors. Ensure Optiml’s outputs are auditable, explainable, and defensible to technical consultants, clients, and partners. Monitor industry practices, competing solutions, and partnership opportunities to inform Optiml’s long‑term technical positioning.
• Lifecycle Costing & Engineering Integration: Integrate and further develop Capex and Opex costing methodologies within Optiml’s building strategy workflows. Connect engineering and simulation outputs to lifecycle cost and investment analysis where relevant. Apply value‑engineering principles to support retrofit feasibility studies and investment‑grade assessments. Act as a technical sparring partner for asset management and consulting clients, as well as internal Delivery and Customer Success teams, ensuring outputs are financially actionable and technically robust.
• Product, Delivery & Data Collaboration: Translate engineering complexity into clear product logic and client‑facing narratives, including Capex breakdowns, assumptions, limitations, and appropriate use of outputs. Use Python and SQL for exploratory analysis, data validation, and to inform integration between modelling outputs and platform data structures (no requirement to write production code). Contribute to internal tools, analytics, and testing and validation frameworks that improve modelling efficiency, consistency, and reporting accuracy.

Requirements

• Education & Experience: Degree in Building Services Engineering, Energy Systems, Building Physics, Architectural Engineering, or a closely related discipline (MSc preferred; PhD a plus). 5+ years of professional experience in building engineering, sustainability, building performance, or energy and carbon advisory roles. Experience across multiple asset classes (e.g. commercial, residential, mixed‑use, and/or large or complex buildings) is strongly preferred.
• Technical Expertise: Strong understanding of MEP and HVAC systems, building physics fundamentals, and how these translate into robust building representations and retrofit strategy logic. Solid working knowledge of digital building workflows and tools, including Rhino and Grasshopper (required); familiarity with EnergyPlus, IES‑VE, or comparable simulation tools is strongly preferred. Proven understanding of international standards and norms (e.g. ISO, ASHRAE, DIN, SIA) and their application in compliance, design assumptions, and engineering methodologies. Experience with lifecycle costing and retrofit economics for complex buildings, including Capex and Opex modelling, feasibility constraints, value engineering, and investment‑grade outputs.
• Data, Product & Collaboration: Strong data literacy, with hands‑on experience using Python and SQL for analysis, validation, and collaboration with data and engineering teams (this is not a software engineering role). Demonstrated ability to support technical project delivery in close collaboration with Product, Delivery, and Customer Success teams. Comfortable working at the intersection of engineering, product, and commercial decision‑making.
• Communication & Practicalities: Strong communication skills, with the ability to clearly explain engineering assumptions, limitations, and outcomes to both technical and non‑technical stakeholders. Comfortable in client‑facing environments, particularly on complex or high‑stakes engagements. Fluent in English; German is a plus. Swiss, EU, or UK work authorisation required (based on current company size).

Benefits:

• Impact: Play a critical role in scaling a company transforming how real estate decarbonizes.
• Ownership: Build and own the operational backbone of a fast‑growing startup.
• Growth: Work closely with an exceptional leadership team and gain exposure to all company functions.
• Culture: Join a mission‑driven, high‑performance, and collaborative team.
• Benefits: Competitive salary, equity options, learning budget (CHF 1k), and additional insurance support. 25 days paid vacation.