Amazon Web Services (AWS) is the world’s most comprehensive and broadly adopted cloud platform. Our Data Center Planning and Delivery (DCPD) organization builds and scales the infrastructure that powers AWS. We are seeking a Construction Estimator specializing in mechanical scope to join the newly formed AMER Estimating and Cost Control (ECC) organization as a discipline subject matter expert.
This is a technical individual contributor role. You will provide blue-badge, bottoms-up mechanical estimating capability for AWS data center construction across AMER and even globally in collaboration with EMEA and APJC Regional Estimating functions. Your focus spans the full mechanical scope of a data center — chilled water and cooling systems, CRAHs/CRACs and air handling, pumps and piping, chillers and cooling towers, refrigerant and liquid-cooling systems, plumbing, and the mechanical content of controls and commissioning packages.
You will collaborate globally with estimating teams across all AWS regions on BOD cost inputs that inform design standards. When Design Engineering introduces a mechanical design change or innovation, you are the first call — delivering rapid, discipline-specific cost impact assessments that enable informed decisions. This role is foundational to ECC’s mission of creating a structured feedback loop between estimate and actual, so estimates improve every cycle.
Key job responsibilities
- Produce detailed, bottoms-up mechanical construction cost estimates — chilled water and cooling systems, CRAHs/CRACs, air handling, chillers, cooling towers, pumps, piping, liquid-cooling, and plumbing
- Collaborate globally with regional estimating teams on Basis of Design (BOD) mechanical cost inputs that - Deliver rapid cost impact assessments for mechanical PDCM intercepts, first-of-kind designs, and innovation proposals from Design Engineering
- Support new regions planning with mechanical estimates for market entry — pre-Cost Breakdown Structure cost intelligence where local pricing data is thin
- Perform detailed mechanical quantity takeoff and pricing from flow diagrams, equipment schedules, specifications, and design documents at all design stages
- Develop and maintain the mechanical cost database — unit rates, $/ton and $/MW parametric models, and equipment pricing reflecting current market conditions and AWS standards
- Serve as the mechanical estimating SME for Estimating Managers, reviewing and validating 3P vendor mechanical estimates
- Analyze mechanical subcontractor pricing, bid tabulations, and awarded contracts to identify trends, anomalies, and cost optimization opportunities
- Benchmark mechanical estimates against portfolio actuals through the estimate-to-actual feedback loop with Cost Control
- Contribute to estimating tools and templates, incorporating lessons learned from completed projects into improved mechanical estimating methodologies
A day in the life
Your morning begins with a quantity takeoff on a Design intercept from Design Engineering — a proposed cooling system change (e.g., a shift in liquid-cooling approach) that could reduce installed cost but adds complexity. You model the delta against the current BOD mechanical estimate and prepare a cost impact memo for DE’s design review.
Midday, you join a global call with mechanical estimating counterparts in EMEA and APJC to align on BOD mechanical cost inputs — chilled-water $/ton, CRAH pricing, and piping unit rates — for the next design standard revision. Your AMER actuals are the benchmark. Afterward, an Estimating Manager asks you to gut-check a 3P vendor’s mechanical estimate; you spot a piping and pump-sizing assumption that doesn’t match the latest flow diagrams and flag it.
You close the day updating your mechanical cost database with final account data — a chiller package landed 6% above estimate in a competitive-bid market. You document the driver and adjust unit rates for the next round of estimates.
About the team
AMER Estimating and Cost Control (ECC) is a newly formed organization within DCPD that unifies Estimating and Cost Control under a single leader. ECC provides end-to-end cost lifecycle ownership — from initial estimate through final account.
You will be one of several Discipline Estimators (Electrical, Mechanical, CSA) working alongside the Estimating Managers who cover cluster groups across AMER, all reporting to the Manager, Construction Estimating (Chief Estimator Equivalent). Estimating provides the inputs — methodology, rates, benchmarks, discipline takeoffs, and 3P vendor products — that support Preconstruction’s owned estimates and CAR deliverables. Your electrical expertise directly supports both project-level estimating and global design standard development.
