Design & Reliability Engineering Manager
Mistral AI · Paris, Île-de-France
ABOUT MISTRAL
Mistral provides full-stack AI solutions: from frontier models to developer tools, applications, and compute. We partner with enterprises tackling the hardest problems across high-stakes industries like finance, manufacturing, defense, healthcare, and the public sector, co-creating customized AI systems that they can run on their terms.
We are a dynamic, collaborative team passionate about AI and its potential to transform society. Our diverse workforce thrives in competitive environments and is committed to driving innovation. Our teams are distributed between Europe, North America, Asia and the Middle East. We are creative, low-ego and team-spirited.
Our mission
Shape the engineering foundations of Mistral AI’s next generation of compute capacity while improving the resilience of the infrastructure already in service. This role combines technical design leadership with field reliability engineering: you will establish demanding, practical requirements for colocation power and cooling, scrutinize proposed solutions and turn operating experience into better designs, safer changes and more reliable AI capacity.
Operating context & accountability
Mistral deploys high-density AI infrastructure in colocation facilities, where partners operate the underlying critical plant. You will be Mistral’s technical counterpart to providers, designers, commissioning specialists and internal IT and capacity teams. The position combines forward-looking design authority with hands-on technical investigation and portfolio reliability improvement. It requires depth in one core engineering discipline and the judgment to lead multidisciplinary decisions with specialist support.
Key responsibilities — design and technical standards
- Own and continuously improve Mistral’s technical design criteria and colocation requirements for new facilities, expansions and retrofits, including availability objectives, failure domains, maintainability and operational flexibility.
- Translate GPU platform roadmaps into measurable facility envelopes: IT load and transients, rack density, electrical topology, redundancy, cooling capacity, supply/return temperatures, flow, pressure, water quality and monitoring.
- Review utility and MV/LV arrangements, transformers, generators, UPS, switchgear, busway, protection coordination, earthing, power quality and metering for suitability under demanding AI loads.
- Review mechanical and controls architecture, including chilled-water and heat-rejection systems, pumps, control sequences, CDU integration, leak detection, filtration, water treatment and cooling recovery scenarios.
- Lead multidisciplinary reviews of single-line diagrams, P&IDs, sequences of operation, design calculations, capacity models, failure-mode studies and proposed deviations; document risks and decisions.
- Participate in site selection, technical due diligence, provider RFPs, design milestones and commercial technical schedules, challenging assumptions before they become delivery constraints.
- Define design review and exception processes that balance performance, resilience, deployment speed, efficiency, capital cost and long-term operability.
Key responsibilities — commissioning and delivery assurance
- Partner with delivery and commissioning teams to define functional and integrated testing requirements, acceptance criteria, evidence packages and outstanding-defect management.
- Validate that electrical and cooling infrastructure can support the contracted AI load envelope under normal, maintenance and credible fault conditions.
- Review test scripts and results for loss of utility, UPS/generator transitions, cooling component failures, controls faults, CDU interface events and staged restoration where applicable.
- Ensure operational handover includes accurate drawings, asset and interface registers, monitoring points, setpoints, maintenance constraints, emergency procedures and unresolved risk ownership.
- Support live-site changes and capacity upgrades with a disciplined review of impact, sequencing, rollback plans and operational readiness.
Key responsibilities — field reliability and root-cause analysis
- Act as a technical escalation point for recurring or high-impact electrical, mechanical and controls incidents across operational colocation sites.
- Analyze alarms, BMS/EPMS trends, event sequences, power-quality records, cooling telemetry, commissioning findings and maintenance evidence to distinguish symptoms from systemic causes.
- Lead or challenge technical root-cause investigations with colocation partners, including common-mode failures, protection miscoordination, thermal instability, control logic, hydraulic performance and hidden capacity limitations.
- Develop risk-ranked corrective actions and reliability improvement programs; validate effectiveness through evidence and post-change monitoring.
- Identify fleet-wide patterns and feed lessons learned into reference designs, acceptance tests, technical specifications and provider governance.
- Review maintenance and change proposals that create material exposure to compute availability, providing clear technical recommendations and escalation where required.
Key responsibilities — collaboration and leadership
- Work with IT hardware, network and platform teams to understand the operational consequences of rack-level and cluster-level failure domains.
- Influence colocation providers, consultants and OEM partners through technically rigorous, fact-based reviews without relying on direct operational authority.
- Present design trade-offs, reliability risks and investment recommendations in language accessible to engineering leadership and business stakeholders.
- Develop reusable standards, technical playbooks and engineering knowledge sharing to support consistent decisions across a rapidly expanding portfolio.
What success looks like
- New capacity is accepted against well-defined electrical, thermal and resilience criteria with transparent technical exceptions.
- Design risks are identified early, reducing late changes, stranded capacity and avoidable operational constraints.
- Repeat incidents and unresolved critical engineering defects decrease as corrective actions are verified.
- Field experience produces measurable improvements to future designs and live-site operating resilience.
Minimum qualifications
- At least 8 years in mission-critical data center design, engineering, commissioning or technical reliability, including responsibility for complex technical decisions.
- Degree in electrical or mechanical engineering, or equivalent professional experience, with deep knowledge in one discipline and strong working knowledge of the other.
- Demonstrated expertise in critical power and cooling architecture, redundancy, failure-mode analysis and operational risk management.
- Experience reviewing engineering drawings, calculations, commissioning evidence and root-cause analyses, and coordinating technical specialists.
- Ability to influence colocation providers and cross-functional stakeholders; excellent English communication and willingness to travel.
Preferred qualifications
- Experience with AI/HPC infrastructure, high-density accelerator platforms and direct-to-chip liquid cooling.
- Knowledge of CDUs, facility-to-technology cooling interfaces, hydraulic performance, cooling-water quality and leak management.
- Experience with electrical protection/selectivity, power quality, controls sequences, integrated systems testing and BMS/EPMS analytics.
- Experience creating technical standards across multiple sites or providers, including design deviations and fleet-wide reliability improvements.
- Professional engineering registration or equivalent technical credentials.
WHAT WE OFFER
We offer a comprehensive benefits package designed to support your well-being, growth, and work-life balance. Benefits vary by country and may include healthcare coverage, parental leave, retirement plans, relocation support, wellness programs, meal and transportation allowances, and other location-specific perks.
For the most up-to-date details on benefits available in your location, please refer to our Benefits page https://app.notion.com/p/mistralai/Benefits-at-Mistral-36e6ba59a7fe836b93dd01737fcc27ef?source=copy_link.
PRIVACY POLICY
Your privacy matters to us. You can learn more about how we handle your personal data in our Applicant Privacy Policy https://legal.mistral.ai/terms/applicant-privacy-policy.