Senior CAD Designer Mechanical and Piping Design
Location: Phoenix / Mesa, Arizona
Work Model: Hybrid
Employment: Full-time About ADC WaterADC Water is a fast-growing water and wastewater engineering firm serving public and private clients across Arizona, the Southwest, and the Pacific Northwest. We combine practical engineering, field experience, and a high-touch approach to solve the real infrastructure challenges our clients face. As we bring more design capability in-house, we are building a team that can produce strong work today and improve how that work gets done as we grow.
The Opportunity:
ADC Water is seeking a senior, hands-on CAD Designer to own mechanical and piping production for water, wastewater, and related industrial infrastructure projects. You will work directly with engineers, field teams, vendors, and project partners to turn P&IDs, field information, equipment data, and design direction into coordinated, constructible drawing packages. This is a production role with real ownership. The right person is comfortable opening the files, tracing the process, routing piping, laying out equipment, resolving routine coordination issues, and flagging discrepancies before they become rework. You will also help ADC strengthen the standards, templates, libraries, and checking practices that support a scalable in-house design function. What You Will OwnMechanical and piping production. Develop plans, sections, equipment layouts, piping layouts, isometrics, details, schedules, and related construction documents for pump stations, treatment facilities, and equipment-intensive infrastructure. P&ID translation. Read and interpret P&IDs and process schematics, understand system flow and component function, and translate design intent into accurate model and drawing work. Equipment integration. Incorporate vendor drawings and submittal information, including actual dimensions, nozzle locations, orientations, elevations, access requirements, and service clearances. Field-informed design. Use site information, existing drawings, scans, measurements, and field verification to model real conditions and identify missing or conflicting inputs early. Multidisciplinary coordination. Coordinate mechanical and process work with civil, structural, electrical, controls, architectural, and construction stakeholders. Drawing quality. Check your work for accuracy, consistency, completeness, constructability, and alignment across plans, sections, details, schedules, and referenced documents. Issue recognition and escalation. Resolve routine drafting and coordination questions independently; when source documents conflict or design direction is unclear, stop, document the issue, and confirm the governing direction with the engineer. Project lifecycle support. Update drawings through design development and construction, support RFIs and submittals, and incorporate approved field and vendor information into the record. CAD systems and standards. Help build and maintain templates, layer and object standards, libraries, file structures, naming conventions, review workflows, and document-control practices. Team development. Share practical knowledge with less-experienced designers and drafters while remaining actively involved in production work.
What We Are Looking For:
Roughly seven or more years of progressive CAD, piping, mechanical, or industrial design experience, with substantial recent hands-on production work. Strong AutoCAD capability in a professional production environment. Experience with Plant 3D, Revit, Civil 3D, or another relevant 3D design platform is valuable, but direct process-mechanical judgment matters more than any one software package. Demonstrated ability to read P&IDs and mechanical drawings; follow process flow; identify pumps, valves, reducers, instruments, and equipment connections; and understand how those elements translate into layouts and details. Experience with piping routing, equipment layouts, mechanical rooms, pump systems, utility systems, or other equipment-intensive facilities. Sound constructability judgment, including awareness of fabrication, installation, operations, maintenance access, and field constraints. The ability to identify missing vendor or field information, catch inconsistencies across documents, and know what to resolve independently versus what to elevate to an engineer. Strong drawing organization, document control, QA/QC habits, and attention to detail. Clear communication and the ability to move assigned work forward with limited oversight while collaborating closely with engineers and project teams. An associate degree, technical diploma, apprenticeship, or equivalent combination of education and relevant experience. A bachelor's degree is not required.
Especially Valuable Experience:- Water or wastewater treatment facilities, pump stations, lift stations, industrial water systems, or utility infrastructure.
- Industrial piping environments such as gas transmission, chemical or process manufacturing, pulp and paper, power, mining, oil and gas, HVAC or process utilities, or rotating-equipment facilities.
- Hands-on maintenance, fabrication, construction, startup, commissioning, or field troubleshooting experience that informs design decisions.
- Creating or improving CAD standards, templates, symbol and detail libraries, file structures, checking routines, training, or document-control systems.
- Working directly with equipment manufacturers, contractors, field teams, and engineers to produce construction-ready deliverables.
- How Success Will Be Measured
- First 90 days
- Learn ADC's project conventions, contribute to active drawing packages, demonstrate reliable P&IDs and piping judgment, and establish trust with engineering and field teams.
- Three to six months
- Independently own defined mechanical and piping packages, surface missing inputs and conflicts early, and deliver coordinated work with limited oversight.
- Six to twelve months
- Operate as a dependable senior production resource across multiple projects, strengthen CAD standards and checking practices, reduce avoidable rework, and help develop the broader design function.
- Why This Role Stands OutDirect involvement in critical water and wastewater infrastructure from early design through construction and startup.
- Meaningful ownership of both project production and the systems that make a design team effective.
- A visible path to broader technical or design-function leadership based on demonstrated impact.
- A hybrid work environment, competitive compensation, benefits, and profit-sharing opportunity.
- We welcome candidates from adjacent industrial sectors when their experience shows strong piping and mechanical fundamentals, current hands-on CAD capability, sound field judgment, and ownership through construction.
Equal OpportunityADC evaluates candidates based on their ability to perform the work and contribute to the team. Qualified applicants will receive consideration without regard to legally protected characteristics.
