Impress employers and recruiters.
Choose from hundreds of resume examples.

Target Resume Now

Tailor your resume to this Director of Facilities and Engineering role.

Rezi rewrites your resume against Whitney Museum of American Art's job description. Free.

Resume score gauge reading 58 out of 100

Don't guess if your resume is good enough.

See how it scores against the Director of Facilities and Engineering posting at Whitney Museum of American Art — free, in seconds.

About the Role

The Director of Facilities and Engineering is a senior strategic, operational, and technical leader responsible for the safe, reliable, efficient, and cost-effective operation of the Museum’s physical facilities, engineering services, and critical building infrastructure. This role provides leadership for facilities operations and engineering teams while ensuring that building systems, maintenance programs, capital strategies, vendor services, and emergency-response capabilities support the Museum’s mission, visitor experience, staff needs, collections stewardship, exhibitions, programs, and long-term institutional resilience. The Director of Facilities and Engineering leads the planning, management, and continuous improvement of building operations, engineering performance, mechanical and electrical infrastructure, life-safety systems, preventive and predictive maintenance, energy management, regulatory compliance, and daily facilities upkeep. The ideal candidate brings deep technical knowledge of complex institutional building systems, strong people leadership, disciplined financial and project-management skills, and the ability to translate engineering data, facility conditions, and operational priorities into sound short- and long-range decisions.

Responsibilities

Provide strategic, technical, and day-to-day leadership for the Facilities and Engineering functions, ensuring safe, reliable, responsive, sustainable, and cost-effective operation of the Museum’s buildings, infrastructure, and critical systems.
Direct engineering operations, including work-order prioritization, preventive and predictive maintenance, equipment troubleshooting, system repairs, shutdown planning, inspections, emergency response, and urgent building conditions.
Lead, supervise, and develop engineering personnel and facilities staff by establishing clear technical standards, service expectations, accountability measures, coverage models, training priorities, and escalation protocols.
Ensure expert oversight of HVAC, mechanical, electrical distribution, plumbing, fire/life-safety, building automation, vertical transportation, security, and other facility infrastructure.
Lead root-cause analysis for system failures, recurring deficiencies, comfort or environmental concerns, and equipment reliability issues; implement corrective and preventive actions.
Partner with Curatorial, Exhibitions, Security, Visitor Experience, IT, and other departments to coordinate engineering needs.
Oversee engineering-related vendor and contractor work, including service quality, safety practices, scheduling, access coordination, maintenance documentation, and warranty follow-up.
Use performance data from CMMS, BMS, inspections, utility trends, and staff observations to monitor building conditions, evaluate maintenance effectiveness, identify risks and resource needs, and strengthen preventive maintenance completion.
Ensure facilities are maintained in a safe, clean, functional, professional, and mission-ready condition.
Lead, develop, and evaluate facilities, engineering, maintenance, and building operations personnel.
Establish clear performance expectations, accountability measures, staffing models, and professional development programs.
Build a culture focused on safety, customer service, operational excellence, continuous improvement, and fiscal responsibility.
Coordinate facilities priorities with executive leadership, finance, IT, security, HR, workplace teams, and other internal stakeholders.
Develop and maintain a multi-year capital improvement and asset-replacement plan.
Identify, scope, prioritize, and justify capital projects, including major renovations, infrastructure upgrades, equipment replacement, energy initiatives, and building-system modernization.
Develop project budgets, schedules, business cases, and return-on-investment analyses.
Lead or oversee capital projects from planning and design through procurement, construction, commissioning, and closeout.
Ensure projects are delivered safely, on budget, on schedule, and in accordance with organizational standards.
Maintain accurate facility asset inventories, condition assessments, lifecycle plans, and capital forecasts.
Develop and manage annual operating and capital budgets for facilities, engineering operations, infrastructure maintenance, service contracts, and building-system investments.
Monitor expenditures, forecast variances, and identify opportunities for cost savings.
Negotiate and manage service contracts, maintenance agreements, and vendor relationships.
Establish reporting mechanisms for facilities and engineering operating costs, energy consumption, service contracts, project execution, asset reliability, deferred maintenance, and building-system performance.
Ensure compliance with applicable building codes, fire and life-safety requirements, environmental regulations, occupational safety requirements, permits, inspections, and other applicable standards.
Maintain effective emergency preparedness, business continuity, and disaster-response procedures.
Coordinate inspections, testing, certifications, and regulatory reporting.
Identify facility-related risks and implement mitigation strategies.
Develop initiatives to improve energy efficiency, building performance, sustainability, and resource utilization.
Analyze utility consumption and identify opportunities for energy conservation and operational optimization.
Support organizational sustainability and carbon-reduction objectives where applicable.

Requirements

Bachelor's degree in engineering, Facilities Management, Construction Management, or Business Administration is required.
Experience in a related field; equivalent technical experience may be considered.
7–10+ years of progressive experience in facilities management, building operations, engineering, property management, or a related field, including significant leadership responsibility.
Strong technical knowledge of commercial, institutional, industrial, or similarly complex building systems.
Demonstrated experience developing and managing operating and capital budgets.
Proven experience with capital planning, infrastructure renewal, construction, renovation, and major building-system projects.
Experience leading technical teams and managing contractors, consultants, and service providers.
Strong knowledge of preventive maintenance, asset management, building automation, energy management, and facility reliability.
Working knowledge of applicable building, fire/life-safety, environmental, and occupational safety requirements.
Strong analytical, financial, project management, communication, and negotiation skills.
Professional Engineering (PE), Certified Facility Manager (CFM), Facilities Management Administrator (FMA), or similar credentials.
Experience with computerized maintenance management systems (CMMS), building management systems (BMS), and facility condition-assessment platforms.
Experience managing large or multi-site facilities portfolios.
Experience with energy-management programs, sustainability initiatives, or building-performance optimization.
Experience with construction procurement, design firms, commissioning, and project delivery methodologies.

Skills

Facilities Management
Building Operations
Engineering
Leadership
Budget Management
Capital Planning
Project Management
Vendor Management
Preventive Maintenance
Asset Management
Building Automation
Energy Management
Facility Reliability
Compliance
Safety Management
Risk Management
Sustainability Initiatives
CMMS
BMS

Location

New York City

Work Type

Full-time

Experience Level

7-10+ years of progressive experience
Significant leadership responsibility

Education Level

Bachelor's degree in engineering, Facilities Management, Construction Management, or Business Administration

Salary/Compensations

$170,000-$180,000

Benefits

Medical
Dental
Vision
403(B) elections
Generous PTO
Commuter benefits (parking and mass transit)
Admission to world-renowned museums
Pet insurance
Discounted membership for Citibike

About the Company

The Whitney Museum of American Art, founded in 1930 by the artist and philanthropist Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, houses the foremost collection of American art from the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
The Whitney Museum of American Art has been championing the most innovative art of the United States for 86 years.
The core of the Whitney’s mission is to collect, preserve, interpret, and exhibit American art of our time and serve a wide variety of audiences in celebration of the complexity and diversity of art and culture in the United States.
Through this mission and a steadfast commitment to artists themselves, the Whitney has long been a powerful force in support of modern and contemporary art and continues to help define what is innovative and influential in American art today.
Its signature exhibition, the Biennial, is the country's leading survey of the most recent developments in American art.

Equal Opportunity

The Whitney Museum of American Art is an Equal Opportunity Employer.
The Museum does not discriminate because of age, sex, religion, race, color, creed, national origin, alienage or citizenship, disability, marital status, pregnancy, partnership status, caregiver status, veteran status, gender (including gender identity), sexual orientation, genetic information, predisposition, or carrier status, arrest or conviction record to the extent required by applicable law, credit history, domestic violence, sexual violence, or stalking victim status, or any other factor prohibited by law.
The Museum hires and promotes individuals solely on the basis of their qualifications for the job to be filled.
The Museum encourages all qualified candidates to apply for vacant positions at all levels.