Career Opportunity

Airport Senior Energy Engineer (5241) - SFO - PEX (158335)

Recruitment: RTF0158334-01053031

Published: August 15, 2025

Apply using SmartRecruiters, the City and County of San Francisco's application portal.

About:

• Application Opening: Friday, August 15, 2025
• Application Deadline: Interested applicants are encouraged to apply as soon as possible as this announcement may close at any time after 5:00 PM (PDT) on Friday, August 22, 2025. 
• Annual Compensation Range: $169,806 - $206,414
• Position Status: Full-Time
• Recruitment IDs: PEX-5241-158335
• Appointment Type. This is an Exempt position excluded by the Charter from the competitive Civil Service examination process, pursuant to the City and County of San Francisco, Charter Section 10.104. It is considered "at will" and shall serve at the discretion of the Appointing Officer. The duration of this appointment is up to 36 months.

Working at SFO

San Francisco International Airport (SFO), an enterprise department of the City and County of San Francisco, has a workforce of approximately 1,900 City employees and is committed to being a diverse, equitable, and inclusive employer.

SFO is more than an airport—we are a dynamic organization where employees collaborate with a wide range of stakeholders to support global travel, economic development, and public service. We are recognized as a leader in environmental sustainability, equity, and forward-thinking infrastructure, and continue to be at the forefront of transforming the travel experience.

Our mission is to deliver an airport experience where people and our planet come first.

Our Vision, Mission, and Core Values shape our culture and operations as we continue to build a supportive, purpose-driven workplace where all employees can thrive.

Learn more about careers at SFO at flysfo.com, and follow us on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn, Bluesky and Threads.

As a team member of SFO, you will embrace SFO’s core values and SFO’s Racial Equity Action Plan.

Role description

Under general supervision, the Airport Senior Energy Engineer will work cross-functionally across sustainability, engineering, finance, and facilities teams, to develop and implement airport-wide building and transport-related energy capital and software-analytics projects that enable the Airport to grow in a cost-effective, carbon-free, reliable and resilient way.  This position will be SFO’s lead energy engineer, establishing standards and delivering key projects that reduce energy consumption, improve load management, activate renewable energy and energy storage solutions, and continuously monitor and improve all campus energy assets. They will be required to develop data-driven, technical solutions to novel cross-organizational and complex energy problems in creative and effective ways.

You are excited about this opportunity because you will:

1. Supervise and monitor the delivery, inspection, recommissioning, and performance monitoring of a wide variety of major and complex energy engineering projects, contracts, and related policies.
2. Prioritize, plan, organize and coordinate capital, analytics, operating energy project activities, including the oversight of assets, onsite load management, and emergency and backup power sources.
3. Prepare, review, analyze and supervise the preparation of proposals, bids and other documents, including advertisement for bids, instructions to bidders, contract bonds, among others for conformance with specifications, approval of final awarding of bids, and timely completion.
4. Lead, direct, coach, train, counsel, a diverse technical team, and organize and supervise the activities of field inspection staff to maximize and maintain a positive and productive work environment.
5. Negotiate contracts and contract modifications and resolve claims and disputes.
6. Review, evaluate, interpret and adhere to federal, regional and local legislation, technical materials, research reports, scientific studies and established policies and procedures affecting engineering work. Summarize these source materials for leadership and incorporate into Airport Standards and projects, where applicable, to consistently improve the energy efficiency, energy storage and/or renewable energy generation potential of new projects and retrofits.
7. Review and inform engineering designs, drawings and specifications, and perform calculations to ensure compliance with requirements and project objectives.
8. Supervise the preparation of cost estimates of labor, equipment, and materials, consulting with Project Management, Engineering and Facilities Staff to validate technical documentation and cost estimates.
9. Assess all projects post-commissioning to ensure building performance is maintained over the asset life. Building asset performance must be presented to the Capital Team no less than 1-year post commissioning, as data is available.
10. Analyze project budget and workload to meet engineering project demands and solve complex engineering and process related problems in the field and in the office, including the use of broader full-cost financial metrics that calculate total cost of ownership, triple-bottom-line cost benefits to inform and justify future CapEx and OpEx investments.
11. Promote and maintain productive working relationships with co-workers, subordinates, department heads, members of Boards, Commissions, agencies and the general public by interacting with tact and courtesy and handling difficult situations with professionalism. Be the main point of contact with upstream utilities including, but not limited to the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, and the energy engineering advisor on all grants and rebates.
12. Convey technical ideas and information, verbally and in writing, and prepare reports, correspondence, contracts and other documents to consult or present to department personnel, officials, consultants, committees, staff, clients and community groups to support project activity.
13. Perform other functions outlined in the 5241 Engineer job classification.

How to qualify

Minimum Qualifications: 

1. Five (5) years verifiable professional engineering (civil, chemical, sanitary, environmental, mechanical, electrical, or transportation (traffic)) work experience, which includes two (2) years experience equivalent to the 5207 Associate Engineer level or higher.

AND

2. Possession of a Certificate of Registration as a Professional Engineer in the State of California in one of the following disciplines: civil, mechanical, electrical, chemical (environmental/sanitary), or transportation (traffic).

Substitution:

a. A Masters degree in Chemical, Sanitary, Transportation (Traffic), or Environmental Engineering disciplines only or A Grade Four Certificate in Water/Wastewater Treatment Operation (CA) may substitute for one year work experience in the chemical, environmental or transportation specialties.

b. A Ph.D. in Chemical, Sanitary, Transportation (Traffic), or Environmental Engineering disciplines only may substitute for two years work experience in the chemical, environmental or transportation specialties.

Desirable Qualifications:

1. Six years of experience related to energy management in either an airport, corporate and/or university campus.
2. Master's degree from accredited college in engineering or related field.
3. Extensive content knowledge in energy, energy efficiency, and project management.
4. Three (3) years’ experience in managing teams or staff.
5. Experience in applying and interpreting building energy codes, standards, and requirements.
6. Experience with conducting financial analysis, energy modeling, building energy management technologies and operating procedures.
7. Experience solving and making sound judgment decisions and creative solutions to extremely complex problems.
8. One or more of the credentials: Certified Energy Manager (CEM), or LEED AP.

One-year full-time employment is equivalent to 2,000 hours (2,000 hours of qualifying work experience is based on a 40-hour work week). Any overtime hours that you work above 40 hours per week are not included in the calculation to determine full-time employment.

Verification

Applicants may be required to submit verification of qualifying education and experience at any point during the recruitment and selection process. If education verification is required, information on how to verify education requirements, including verifying foreign education credits or degree equivalency, can be found at https://sfdhr.org/how-verify-education-requirements.

Note: Falsifying one’s education, training, or work experience or attempted deception on the application may result in disqualification for this and future job opportunities with the City and County of San Francisco.

All work experience, education, training and other information substantiating how you meet the minimum qualifications must be included on your application by the filing deadline. Information submitted after the filing deadline will not be considered in determining whether you meet the minimum qualifications.

Resumes will not be accepted in lieu of a completed City and County of San Francisco application.

Applications completed improperly may be cause for ineligibility, disqualification or may lead to lower scores.

What else should I know?

Selection Procedures

The selection process will include evaluation of applications in relation to minimum requirements.  Applicants meeting the minimum qualifications are not guaranteed advancement to interview.  Depending on the number of applicants, the Department may establish and implement additional screening mechanisms to comparatively evaluate the qualifications of candidates.  If this becomes necessary, only those applicants whose qualifications most closely meet the needs of the Department will be invited for an interview.

NOTE:  Applicants who meet the minimum qualifications are not guaranteed advancement through all of the steps in the selection procedure.

Transportation Security Administration (TSA) Security Clearance:
Candidates for employment with the San Francisco Airport Commission are required to undergo a criminal history record check, including FBI fingerprints, and Security Threat Assessment in order to determine eligibility for security clearance and may be required to undergo drug/alcohol screening. Per Civil Service Commission Rule Section 110.9.1, every applicant for an examination must possess and maintain the qualifications required by law and by the examination announcement for the examination. Failure to obtain and maintain security clearance may be basis for termination from employment with the Airport Commission.

Additional Information Regarding Employment with the City and County of San Francisco:

• Information About The Hiring Process
• Conviction History
• Employee Benefits Overview  
• Equal Employment Opportunity 
• Disaster Service Worker
• ADA Accommodation
• Right to Work
• Copies of Application Documents
• Diversity Statement

HOW TO APPLY

Applications for City and County of San Francisco jobs are only accepted through an online process. Visit https://careers.smartrecruiters.com/CityAndCountyOfSanFrancisco1/ and begin the application process.

• Select the “I’m Interested” button and follow instructions on the screen

Applicants may be contacted by email about this recruitment and, therefore, it is their responsibility to ensure that their registered email address is accurate and kept up-to-date. Also, applicants must ensure that email from CCSF is not blocked on their computer by a spam filter. To prevent blocking, applicants should set up their email to accept CCSF mail from the following addresses (@sfgov.org, @sfdpw.org, @sfport.com, @flysfo.com, @sfwater.org, @sfdph.org, @asianart.org, @sfmta.com, @sfpl.org, @dcyf.org, @first5sf.org, @famsf.org, @ccsf.edu, @smartalerts.info, and @smartrecruiters.com).

Applicants will receive a confirmation email that their online application has been received in response to every announcement for which they file. Applicants should retain this confirmation email for their records. Failure to receive this email means that the online application was not submitted or received.

Recruitment Analyst Information: If you have any questions regarding this recruitment or application process, please contact recruitment analyst Linda King at Linda.King@flysfo.com.

The City and County of San Francisco encourages women, minorities and persons with disabilities to apply. Applicants will be considered regardless of their sex, race, age, religion, color, national origin, ancestry, physical disability, mental disability, medical condition (associated with cancer, a history of cancer, or genetic characteristics), HIV/AIDS status, genetic information, marital status, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, gender expression, military and veteran status, or other protected category under the law.