Overview
The Lead Critical Facilities Technician - HVAC supports mission-critical data center and commercial mechanical operations in Sterling, VA, and the surrounding Northern Virginia market. This hands-on lead role coordinates daily field activity, provides technical direction, and performs preventive maintenance, troubleshooting, repairs, inspections, and documentation while protecting safety, quality, and uptime.
The position serves as a primary technical escalation point for technicians, customers, vendors, and leadership. The Lead Technician helps plan and prioritize work, verifies procedural compliance and work quality, mentors team members, and ensures critical mechanical systems operate safely and reliably.
The ideal candidate is a hands-on lead technician with deep commercial HVAC and live data center experience. This person can direct work, mentor technicians, troubleshoot complex systems, lead procedural maintenance, coordinate vendors, communicate with customers, and protect uptime.
Pay: $50.00 - $65.00/hr. The pay listed is the hourly range or the hourly rate for this position. A specific offer will vary based on applicant’s
experience, skills, abilities, geographic location, and alignment with market data.
Benefit Information: ABM offers a comprehensive benefits package. For information about ABM’s benefits, visit ABM Team Member
Benefits | Front Line Team Members | (Programa de Beneficios de ABM).
Responsibilities
Lead and perform preventive maintenance, corrective maintenance, troubleshooting, and repair work on commercial and mission-critical HVAC systems.
Provide daily technical direction to technicians; assign and prioritize work, monitor progress, mentor team members, and verify work quality and documentation.
Service and maintain RTUs, AHUs, CRAC/CRAH units, split systems, heat pumps, fan coils, VAVs, exhaust fans, pumps, condensers, chillers, cooling towers, and related mechanical equipment.
Diagnose complex mechanical, electrical, airflow, refrigerant, and controls-related issues; determine corrective action and escalate risks that could affect safety or uptime.
Use BAS/BMS and related monitoring systems to verify equipment status, investigate alarms, support maintenance modes, analyze trends, and confirm proper system operation.
Lead execution of MOPs, SOPs, EOPs, LOTO, permit-to-work, and change-control activities in accordance with site requirements.
Respond to alarms, service calls, urgent repairs, and customer concerns; coordinate the technical response and communicate status through resolution.
Review work orders, PM records, service reports, inspection records, refrigerant logs, and turnover documentation for accuracy, completeness, and timely closeout.
Identify deficiencies, develop repair recommendations and scopes, support quote development, and coordinate parts, labor, vendors, and follow-up work.
Coordinate vendors, subcontractors, site teams, dispatch, service leadership, and ABM management to complete maintenance, repairs, inspections, and projects safely and on schedule.
Reinforce safe work practices, including PPE, LOTO, SDS, electrical safety awareness, refrigerant handling, ladder safety, housekeeping, and stop-work authority.
Support field service, project work, PM ramp-up, customer coverage, on-call rotation, and emergency response throughout Sterling and the broader Northern Virginia market.
Perform other duties as assigned.
Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities:
Advanced troubleshooting skills across HVAC, mechanical, electrical, refrigerant, airflow, and controls systems.
Ability to lead by example while remaining hands-on in customer-facing, mission-critical environments.
Sound judgment to prioritize work, manage technical escalations, and protect safety, quality, and uptime.
Ability to coach technicians, provide clear direction, inspect completed work, and reinforce accountability.
Procedural discipline and calm decision-making during alarms, equipment failures, maintenance windows, and emergency response.
Strong communication skills with customers, vendors, dispatch, technicians, and leadership.
Detail-oriented approach to PM records, service reports, refrigerant logs, deficiency tracking, shift turnover, and follow-up recommendations.
Professional presence, dependable attendance, and ability to represent ABM effectively at customer sites.
Qualifications
Required:
- 7+ years of commercial, industrial, institutional, or mission-critical HVAC experience, including experience in a data center or comparable critical environment.
- Demonstrated experience as a lead technician, senior technician, shift lead, or technical mentor with responsibility for coordinating work and supporting other technicians.
- Advanced hands-on experience troubleshooting and repairing RTUs, AHUs, CRAC/CRAH units, split systems, heat pumps, pumps, VAVs, fan coils, exhaust fans, and related controls.
- EPA 608 Universal Certification.
- Ability to diagnose complex mechanical, electrical, airflow, refrigerant, and controls issues and guide safe corrective action.
- Ability to read and interpret wiring diagrams, equipment manuals, sequence-of-operations documents, work orders, PM procedures, and mechanical drawings.
Preferred:
- Direct hyperscale, colocation, or multi-tenant data center operations experience.
- Experience with CRAC/CRAH units and critical-cooling manufacturers such as Liebert, Stulz, Data Aire, Vertiv, or similar equipment.
- Advanced BAS/BMS experience with Johnson Controls, Metasys, Honeywell, Siemens, Trane, or similar platforms, including alarm response and trend analysis.
- Experience with chillers, cooling towers, condenser systems, pumps, four-pipe systems, central plants, or other large-tonnage HVAC equipment.
- Working knowledge of critical electrical infrastructure such as generators, ATS/STS, switchgear, UPS, PDUs, and batteries, with the ability to coordinate safely with qualified electrical personnel.
- OSHA 30, NFPA 70E, journeyman license, or applicable union trade credentials.
- Experience leading vendors and subcontractors, coordinating customer communications, and conducting quality or procedural reviews.
- Experience supporting repair scopes, quote development, parts identification, outage planning, and follow-up service execution.
