Senior Manager Lead, MEP and Fire Systems Engineer

Full Job Description

Mission

Neko is redefining what prevention means, from treating illness when it arrives, to sustaining health before it's ever at risk. Our mission: make data-driven, preventative care accessible to more people, before symptoms appear.

In a single, non-invasive visit under an hour, proprietary technology and direct clinical care combine to deliver personalised, actionable insights. It's a team that thinks in 10x, not 10%. Every role here plays a part in building a world where prevention is the norm, and where your work genuinely helps people live longer, healthier lives.

Role Purpose

Neko Health exists to transform healthcare through the mass adoption of preventative healthcare, enabled by the right technology. The U.S. Construction team is building more than individual clinics: a scalable delivery platform that supports rapid expansion while holding the line on quality, cost, speed, and a distinctly Neko experience across every location.

We're looking for a Senior Manager Lead, MEP and Fire Systems Engineer to be Neko's technical authority for mechanical, electrical, plumbing, fire protection, and life safety across the U.S. clinic portfolio. External engineering firms produce and seal the design: you decide whether that design is correct, buildable, defensible to the authority having jurisdiction, and worth what it costs. This is a senior individual contributor role and the first dedicated engineering hire in U.S. Construction, working through consultants, project managers, and cross-functional partners rather than direct reports.

The ideal candidate has spent 12+ years on the owner, developer, or owner's-representative side of building engineering, has led designs rather than just contributed to them, and is as comfortable building a standard from scratch as holding external firms to one.

What You'll Deliver in the First 6–12 Months

Engineering Standards

• Publish a Neko basis of design for MEP, fire protection, and life safety that consultants design to and reviewers can test against.

• Set one engineering deliverable standard and set of acceptance criteria, applied across every firm and market.

• Build a portfolio engineering dataset, covering loads, capacities, and system cost per clinic, and use it in every design review and site selection call.

Landlord & Base Building

• Review landlord work letters and base building conditions before Neko signs, and turn technical findings into commercial redlines.

• Issue a standard Neko infrastructure requirements package to landlords and brokers, with review built into the deal process up front.

Fire Protection & Life Safety

• Own Neko's fire protection and life safety position across the portfolio: occupancy, egress, suppression, detection, and alarm design.

• Represent Neko in front of fire officials and code reviewers, and confirm the code basis for each new market.

Cost & Value Engineering

• Lead value engineering on MEP and fire scope at concept and design development, not as a rescue exercise after a bid comes in high.

• Review contractor pricing, change orders, and substitutions on engineering scope with a clear, defensible technical opinion.

Standards & Change Management

• Own the MEP, fire, and life safety content of Neko's design standard, and run changes through platform governance so improvements propagate deliberately across the portfolio, not by precedent.

• Pursue prefabrication, modularization, and standardized assemblies where they compress schedule and improve consistency, keeping the standard in step with Neko's evolving scanning technology.

Engineering Analytics & Data

• Turn that dataset into a benchmarking tool: compare sites, flag outliers, and challenge consultant assumptions with Neko's own evidence rather than industry rules of thumb.

• Identify where automation and AI can cut review time, catch coordination errors earlier, or sharpen technical decisions.

Minimum Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Mechanical, Electrical, Architectural, or Fire Protection Engineering, or a closely related discipline.

• 12+ years of engineering experience, including substantial time on the owner, developer, or owner's-representative side.

• A track record leading designs on client engagements, not just contributing to them.

• Deep working knowledge of HVAC, electrical distribution, plumbing, fire suppression, fire alarm, and life safety systems in commercial or healthcare environments.

• Proven ability to review, challenge, and correct the work of external engineering consultants, including the calculations behind it.

• Direct experience with code officials, fire departments, and plan reviewers across more than one jurisdiction.

• Strong cost fluency: able to price a system concept, evaluate an alternative, and defend a position to Finance and Estimating.

• Excellent written and verbal communication, with the ability to make a technical argument land with a non-technical audience.

Preferred

• Professional Engineer (PE) license, or fire protection credentials such as PE (Fire Protection), SFPE, or NICET.

• Experience in ambulatory care, outpatient clinic, diagnostic imaging, or medical device environments.

• Multi-site rollout experience in healthcare, retail, hospitality, or commercial interiors.

• Landlord-side or base building engineering background.

• Familiarity with Revit, BIM coordination, or energy modeling.

• Exposure / experience with AI-enabled design review, automation, BMS, or technical knowledge management.

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