Chiller Technician Specialist

Job Type:  Full-time | Location:  Childress, TX | Department:  Operations | Reporting to:  Mechanical Manager | Work Location Type:  #onsite

IREN is a leading AI Cloud Service Provider, delivering large-scale GPU clusters for AI training and inference. IREN’s vertically integrated platform is underpinned by its expansive portfolio of grid-connected land and data centers in renewable-rich regions across the U.S. and Canada.  

The Chiller Specialist is the most senior technical authority on shift for the central utility plant (CUP) at IREN’s liquid-cooled hyperscale campuses in West Texas and Oklahoma. This role owns the safe, reliable operation of the entire thermal chain – centrifugal and screw chillers, cooling towers, pumps, heat exchangers, CDUs, coolant distribution loops and the water treatment systems that keep them alive – supporting AI compute loads where a cooling excursion measured in minutes becomes a customer-impacting event.

Beyond hands-on maintenance and troubleshooting, the Chiller Specialist is the technical lead for the mechanical team, setting the technical standard for central utility plant (CUP) operations. This individual writes and validates Methods of Procedure, leads complex corrective work and vendor-supported overhauls, shares technical expertise with Chiller Technicians at every level and apprentices, and acts as the incident commander for thermal events. This is a technical authority role rather than a people-management position – reporting to the Associate Director of Operations, it is a career destination for a technician who wants ownership of a world-class cooling plant rather than a truck and a service route.

With 100% renewable energy, we build, own and operate our data centers and take pride in being at the forefront of sustainable solutions for the ever-evolving applications of high-performance compute. We believe that human progress is invaluable, but it should be done in the right way – responsibly, sustainably and having a positive impact on the communities we operate in.  

Responsibilities

• Chiller plant operation and ownership: Operate, monitor and maintain centrifugal, screw and air-cooled chillers, cooling towers, condenser and chilled water pumps, heat exchangers, dry coolers and associated valves and piping across assigned campuses.
• Liquid cooling systems: Maintain and troubleshoot direct-to-chip and immersion cooling infrastructure, including coolant distribution units (CDUs), manifolds, quick-disconnects, secondary fluid loops, filtration and leak detection, working to the tight temperature and flow tolerances that high-density AI racks demand.
• Water chemistry and treatment: Own water treatment programmes for condenser and technical cooling loops – sampling, dosing, biological and corrosion control, conductivity and glycol management – and manage the treatment vendor relationship, which matters acutely in the water-constrained West Texas environment.
• Preventive and predictive maintenance leadership: Execute and quality-check the mechanical PM programme, perform vibration, thermal and oil analysis interpretation, and use trend data to catch degradation before it becomes failure.
• Incident response and troubleshooting: Act as the senior on-shift responder for thermal alarms and mechanical failures, diagnosing root cause under time pressure, executing recovery, and leading post-incident review and corrective action.
• Methods of Procedure and change control: Author, peer-review and validate MOPs, SOPs and EOPs for mechanical work; ensure all activity on critical plant runs through the change management process with appropriate risk assessment.
• Technical knowledge-sharing: Share technical expertise and best practices with Chiller Technicians at every level and apprentices on shift, acting as the go-to technical resource for complex fault diagnosis and procedure walkthroughs – without formal supervisory or people-management responsibility.
• Vendor and contractor oversight: Direct and quality-assure OEM and specialist contractor work including chiller overhauls, eddy current testing, refrigerant handling and major component replacement; verify scope, workmanship and site safety compliance.
• Commissioning and handover support: Support commissioning, integrated systems testing and handover of new mechanical plant as campuses expand, representing the Operations position on constructability and maintainability.
• Safety and compliance: Champion lockout/tagout, confined space, arc flash, hot work and refrigerant handling compliance; maintain EPA Section 608 records and support environmental and regulatory reporting.
• Documentation and systems: Maintain accurate records in the CMMS and BMS/EPMS, keep operational readings and asset histories current, and contribute to reliability reporting for the Associate Director of Operations.
• Spares and critical inventory: Define and maintain critical spare parts holdings for mechanical plant, recognizing that lead times and remote site logistics make on-hand inventory a reliability decision.

Requirements

• 7+ years of hands-on experience maintaining and troubleshooting large-tonnage chiller plant, with at least 3 years in a mission-critical environment such as a data center, hospital, semiconductor fab, pharmaceutical plant or heavy industrial facility
• EPA Section 608 Universal certification is required
• Demonstrable expertise across centrifugal and screw chillers from major OEMs (Trane, Carrier, York/Johnson Controls, Daikin) including refrigerant circuits, oil systems, starters and control sequences
• Direct experience with liquid cooling infrastructure – CDUs, direct-to-chip loops, secondary fluid systems or immersion cooling – or closely transferable precision process cooling experience, with the appetite to specialize
• Strong working knowledge of cooling towers, pumps, heat exchangers, VFDs, water treatment chemistry and hydronic system balancing
• Ability to read and interpret mechanical drawings, P&IDs, schematics and control sequences
• Proven experience authoring or peer-reviewing Methods of Procedure and working under formal change management in a live critical environment
• Experience acting as a technical resource or informal mentor for less experienced technicians (formal supervisory experience is not required)
• Competence with BMS/EPMS platforms and CMMS record-keeping
• High school diploma or equivalent required; trade school, apprenticeship completion, military technical training or an associate degree in HVAC, refrigeration or mechanical technology strongly preferred
• Additional credentials welcomed: journeyman or master HVAC license, Texas TDLR registration, boiler or stationary engineer license, NATE, RETA CRO/CIRO, or manufacturer-specific chiller certifications
• Ability to work 12-hour rotating shifts including nights, weekends and holidays, and to participate in an on-call rotation
• Physically able to climb ladders and stairs, work at height and in confined spaces, lift up to 50 pounds, and work in mechanical spaces and outdoor West Texas conditions
• Valid driver’s license and willingness to travel between the Texas and Oklahoma campuses as required
• Must live within, or be willing to relocate to, commutable distance of the assigned campus; relocation assistance is available
• Strong communication skills and sound judgement under pressure, with the confidence to stop work when a situation is unsafe or a procedure is wrong