Chief Engineer (Salaried/Exempt)
Location: Hyatt Place Seattle Downtown | Seattle, WA
Salary: $80,168.40 - $82,000.00 annually
Incentive: Eligible for quarterly incentive bonus
Schedule: Full-time | Flexible schedule including nights, weekends, and holidays as needed
Status: Exempt (Salaried; not eligible for overtime)
Position Overview
Hotel Equities, a multi-award-winning hotel development and hospitality management company, is currently seeking a highly skilled and hands-on Chief Engineer for the Hyatt Place Seattle Downtown in Seattle, WA.
This is a working leadership role for an experienced hotel maintenance professional who enjoys being actively involved in the day-to-day operation of the property. The Chief Engineer is responsible for leading the maintenance team while personally assisting with troubleshooting, repairs, preventative maintenance, inspections, and property improvement projects. This is not a vendor-management-only position; the ideal candidate will lead by example and take an active role in maintaining the hotel's systems, facilities, and grounds.
The Chief Engineer oversees the maintenance, safety, appearance, and functionality of the entire property, including guestrooms, public areas, back-of-house spaces, hotel grounds, landscaping, parking garage, loading dock, and all building systems. The role is also responsible for ensuring compliance with required inspections, testing, permits, certifications, and life safety programs.
As a member of the hotel's Emergency Response Team, the Chief Engineer plays a critical role in responding to property emergencies and operational disruptions. This position may require after-hours response to urgent maintenance, life safety, security, utility, weather-related, or building system issues to help protect guests, associates, and hotel assets.
Ideal candidates will have previous experience as a Hotel Chief Engineer, Assistant Chief Engineer, Hotel Maintenance Manager, Facilities Manager, Engineering Supervisor, or Maintenance Supervisor within a hotel, resort, or hospitality environment.
Key Responsibilities
- Lead, supervise, and actively work alongside the maintenance team to complete repairs, preventative maintenance, work orders, and troubleshooting throughout the hotel.
- Maintain the safe and reliable operation of all hotel systems, including HVAC, plumbing, electrical, mechanical, life safety, kitchen, laundry, telecommunications, and related equipment.
- Oversee the appearance, cleanliness, safety, and maintenance of the entire property, including hotel grounds, landscaping, parking garage, sidewalks, loading dock, service areas, exterior lighting, and guest-facing spaces.
- Conduct regular property inspections and proactively identify, prioritize, and resolve maintenance, safety, operational, and appearance-related issues.
- Ensure compliance with all required permits, inspections, certifications, preventative maintenance schedules, and regulatory testing, including quarterly, semi-annual, and annual requirements related to fire and life safety systems, elevators, backflow prevention devices, emergency equipment, and other applicable property systems.
- Manage departmental budgets, utility expenses, inventory, purchasing, and capital improvement planning.
- Hire, train, coach, and develop maintenance team members while promoting accountability, safety, and service excellence.
- Respond promptly to guest and operational maintenance requests, ensuring issues are resolved efficiently and professionally.
- Partner with hotel leadership to evaluate building and property conditions, recommend cost-effective repairs and improvements, and support long-term asset preservation.
- Manage vendor relationships and contractor work when specialized services are required while maintaining hands-on ownership of overall property maintenance and operations.
- Serve as a member of the hotel's Emergency Response Team and respond to emergency situations, including occasional after-hours calls related to life safety, security, utility outages, severe weather, and critical building system failures.
Qualifications
- High School diploma, secondary qualification, or equivalent.
- Minimum three (3) years of hotel maintenance experience.
- Previous experience in hotel engineering, facilities maintenance, property maintenance, or building operations strongly preferred.
- Experience with Hyatt processes and standards preferred.
- Must be comfortable in a highly hands-on leadership role that involves personally completing repairs, diagnosing building issues, and supporting the maintenance team.
- Strong working knowledge of hotel maintenance operations, preventative maintenance programs, and building systems.
- Must be able to speak, read, write, and understand the primary language(s) used in the workplace.
- Must be able to read and write to facilitate communication and documentation.
- Most tasks are performed in a team environment with the associate acting as a team leader and working with minimal direct supervision.
- Strong verbal and written communication skills.
- Basic computational ability required.
- Basic computer skills required.
- Knowledge of computer accounting programs, math skills, and budgetary analysis capabilities required.
- Thorough knowledge of mechanical equipment such as chillers, boilers, water softeners, and refrigeration equipment.
- Thorough knowledge of plumbing and electrical systems, including maintenance records for power, water, and fuel consumption.
- Experience with office procedures, ordering materials, inventory control, securing bids, city codes, applicable laws, building construction, blueprint reading, and maintenance documentation.
- Working knowledge of federal, state, and local laws governing equal employment opportunity and civil rights, occupational safety and health, wage and hour issues, and labor relations, including but not limited to Title VII, Equal Pay Act, Pregnancy Discrimination Act, FLSA, ADA, OSHA, FMLA, and NLRA, as well as comparable state and local laws where applicable.
Other Qualifications & Attributes
- Passionate about people, service, and hospitality.
- Strong communication skills when interacting with guests, associates, and vendors.
- Strong troubleshooting and problem-solving abilities.
- Ability to prioritize multiple maintenance projects and operational needs in a fast-paced hotel environment.
- Strong leadership, coaching, motivating, and training abilities.
- Ability to work a flexible schedule, including nights, weekends, and holidays.
- Commitment to maintaining a safe, clean, and welcoming environment for guests and team members.
Amazing Benefits At A Glance
- Free Employee parking available
- Employer paid Orca card after 30 days
- Insurance: Medical, dental, vision insurance available for full-time employees and their family; Short-term and Long-term Disability Insurance; Supplemental Life Insurance; and Flexible Savings Account
- Retirement: After 6 months of employment, employees are eligible to enroll for 401k with up to a 5% company match
- Paid Time Off: Vacation Time - 80 hours on your first 3 years of service; Sick Time – 1 hour accrued per 30 hours worked
- Paid Holidays: New Year's Day, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving, and Christmas Day
- Other benefits: Dailypay- same day pay up to 80% of your daily earnings
- Career Growth Opportunities/ Manager Training Program
- Reduced Room Rates throughout the portfolio
- Third Party Perks (Movie Tickets, Attractions, Other)
- Hyatt Team Member Travel Program (Book Hyatt hotels worldwide starting at $89!)
EQUAL EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITY
The Hotel Group, in partnership with Hotel Equities is an Equal Opportunity Employer, offering employment opportunities to all qualified persons without regard to race, color, national origin, citizenship, disability, religion, creed, age, sex, caste, sexual orientation, gender identity, ancestry, marital status, pregnancy, political ideology, veteran or military status, genetic information, or other classifications protected by law.
Hotel Equities participates in E-Verify, the federal program for electronic verification of employment eligibility.
All candidates will be required to complete a pre-employment background check.
Please note that this job description is not an exclusive or exhaustive list of all functions that a Chief Engineer may be asked to perform.
Pay: $80,168.40 - $82,000.00 per year
Benefits:
- 401(k)
- 401(k) matching
- Dental insurance
- Employee assistance program
- Employee discount
- Flexible schedule
- Flexible spending account
- Health insurance
- Health savings account
- Life insurance
- Paid time off
- Professional development assistance
- Referral program
- Retirement plan
- Vision insurance
Application Question(s):
- This position may require responding to after-hours emergencies involving guest impact, life safety systems, utility outages, or critical building equipment failures. Please describe your experience with after-hours call response and explain how you determine whether an issue can wait until the next business day or requires immediate action.
- Please list any certifications, licenses, or specialized training you hold that are relevant to hotel maintenance, engineering, HVAC, electrical, plumbing, life safety, or related trades.
- Do you have previous experience directly supervising, training, scheduling, and evaluating a team of maintenance employees? (Yes/No)
Experience:
- Maintenance: 3 years (Required)
- Hotel: 3 years (Preferred)
Shift availability:
- Day Shift (Preferred)
- Night Shift (Preferred)
Ability to Commute:
- Seattle, WA 98109 (Required)
Work Location: In person
