Magnetic Bearing Water-Cooled Chiller SME

About Johnson Controls

Johnson Controls, a global leader in thermal management, mission-critical building systems, energy efficiency, and decarbonization, helps customers use energy more productively, reduce carbon emissions, and operate with the precision and resilience required in rapidly expanding industries such as data centers, healthcare, pharmaceuticals, advanced manufacturing, and higher education.

For more than 140 years, Johnson Controls has delivered performance where it really matters. Backed by advanced technology, lifecycle services, and an industry-leading field organization, we elevate customer performance, turn goals into real-world results, and help move society forward.

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What you will do

Johnson Controls is seeking a Magnetic Bearing Water-Cooled Chiller Subject Matter Expert to serve as a senior technical authority for our YORK magnetic-bearing centrifugal chiller portfolio.

In this highly influential role, you will provide advanced technical leadership across the complete product lifecycle, supporting Field Sales, Service, Product Technical Support, Engineering, Manufacturing, Quality, and Product Management.

You will bring deep expertise in water-cooled centrifugal chillers, magnetic-bearing drivelines, compressor operation, refrigeration systems, controls, and variable-speed technology. The role requires not only the ability to solve difficult technical problems, but also the ability to translate that knowledge into service procedures, technical literature, training, design improvements, and long-term product reliability.

You will also be deeply involved in new product development and product enhancement, representing the serviceability, reliability, field, and customer perspective throughout the engineering process. You will collaborate with engineering teams to evaluate designs, establish validation plans, review test results, identify product risks, and help ensure new products enter the market ready to perform reliably throughout their lifecycle.

Ideal candidates would be local to our New Freedom, PA site, or willing to travel frequently to be in location with our design engineering teams and test labs.

How you will do it

• Serve as the Subject Matter Expert for YORK magnetic-bearing water-cooled centrifugal chillers, providing technical leadership across the product lifecycle.

• Provide advanced day-to-day technical support to the global Field Sales, Service, and Product Technical Support organizations through site visits, remote troubleshooting, technical reviews, and escalation support.

• Lead the diagnosis and resolution of complex chiller system problems involving refrigeration, compressor operation, magnetic-bearing systems, motors, variable-speed drives, controls, heat exchangers, system applications, and overall unit performance.

• Act as a senior escalation resource for challenging field issues, using operating data, trends, service history, test results, and engineering analysis to establish root cause and corrective actions.

• Provide technical leadership for magnetic-bearing driveline systems, including the motor, active magnetic bearings, magnetic-bearing controller, compressor, and associated control architecture.

• Partner with Engineering, Quality, Manufacturing, Product Management, and Service teams to drive product reliability and continuous improvement.

• Participate in new product development, design reviews, risk assessments, validation planning, prototype testing, product launch readiness, and post-launch support.

• Develop test and validation plans to evaluate product changes, resolve field issues, verify corrective actions, and demonstrate product reliability.

• Bring the voice of the field and service organization into product development, ensuring serviceability, diagnostics, maintainability, reliability, and lifecycle considerations are addressed early in the design process.

• Create and maintain technical service literature, including service bulletins, service letters, troubleshooting procedures, diagnostic guidance, training materials, and updates to internal technical knowledge systems.

• Develop and deliver technical training and knowledge transfer to Product Technical Support, Field Service, Engineering, and other internal organizations.

• Mentor engineers and technical support personnel, helping build organizational expertise in magnetic-bearing centrifugal chiller technology.

• Support structured root-cause investigations and corrective-action activities for significant product quality and reliability issues.

• Analyze quantitative and qualitative field information to identify recurring product issues, emerging reliability risks, and opportunities for product improvement.

• Maintain strong relationships across global Engineering, Product Technical Support, Field Service, Manufacturing, Quality, and Product Management organizations to enable rapid resolution of complex customer issues.

• Represent the organization professionally during critical customer and field situations where deep technical expertise and sound engineering judgment are required.

What we look for

Required

• Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or a related engineering discipline, or equivalent relevant technical experience.

• 7+ years of experience with commercial HVAC/R equipment, preferably large-tonnage applied equipment or water-cooled centrifugal chillers.

• Demonstrated ability to troubleshoot and resolve complex system-level technical problems.

• Strong understanding of the refrigeration cycle and its application to water-cooled centrifugal chillers.

• Experience interpreting chiller operating data, trends, control information, performance data, and field observations to identify root cause.

• Ability to develop technical test plans and use engineering data to validate solutions and product changes.

• Strong written and verbal communication skills with the ability to translate complex technical information for engineering, service, sales, and customer audiences.

• Ability to travel domestically and internationally up to 15%.

Preferred

• Extensive hands-on experience with magnetic-bearing centrifugal chillers.

• Understanding of active magnetic bearings, permanent-magnet motors, magnetic-bearing controllers, variable-speed drives and chiller controls.

• Experience troubleshooting compressor operating-map, surge, driveline, controls, vibration, electrical, or system application issues.

• Experience supporting complex field escalations and conducting formal root-cause investigations.

• Experience with new-product-development processes, DFMEA and design reviews, engineering validation testing, and product launch activities.

• Experience authoring technical service literature, troubleshooting procedures, training material, or technical bulletins.

• Demonstrated ability to mentor engineers and service professionals and build technical capability across an organization.

Why this role matters

Magnetic-bearing chillers combine traditional centrifugal refrigeration expertise with the integration of mechanical, electrical, controls, compressor, and magnetic-bearing technologies. This SME provides technical continuity between Engineering and the installed base, ensuring that lessons learned in the field improve current products, influence future designs, and are transferred back to the global service organization.

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Johnson Controls International plc. is an equal employment opportunity and affirmative action employer and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, protected veteran status, genetic information, sexual orientation, gender identity, status as a qualified individual with a disability or any other characteristic protected by law. To view more information about your equal opportunity and non-discrimination rights as a candidate, visit EEO is the Law. If you are an individual with a disability and you require an accommodation during the application process, please visit here.