Forensic Engineer (MEP / Building Services) — Singapore

Singapore   Open to electrical OR mechanical biased building services engineers   Full forensic and expert witness training provided

JustEng is recruiting a Forensic Engineer (MEP / Building Services) for the Singapore office of a long-established, employee-owned forensic investigation and expert witness consultancy. The firm has investigated failures, fires and disputes for insurers, loss adjusters, solicitors and major corporates for over four decades, and its 150-plus specialists cover more than 70 technical fields across offices in Asia-Pacific, the Middle East, Europe and the UK.

The Singapore office is the hub for investigation work across Singapore and wider South East Asia. This is a genuine career move for a building services engineer — from designing systems to establishing why they failed. Full structured training in forensic method and expert witness practice is provided.

Open to both electrical and mechanical

The client is deliberately open on discipline bias. A strong electrical building services engineer and a strong mechanical or ACMV engineer are equally welcome — what matters is depth in one and working literacy in the other, because real MEP failures rarely respect the boundary between them. A chilled water plant failure is a mechanical problem until you find the control panel that caused it.

About the sector

Forensic engineering and expert witness work is the investigation of failures, defects, fires and disputes, producing independent technical evidence relied upon in insurance claims, adjudications under the Building and Construction Industry Security of Payment Act, arbitrations and court proceedings. The work sits at the intersection of engineering, investigation and law.

For an MEP specialist working out of Singapore, casework typically includes:

• Escape of water — failed pipework, joints and fittings, sprinkler and wet riser discharge, condensate and drainage failures, and the water damage claims that follow in high-rise residential and commercial buildings
• ACMV and HVAC failures — chillers, cooling towers, AHUs and FCUs, pumps, refrigerant systems, control and BMS faults, and the humidity, mould and condensation problems specific to this climate
• Electrical distribution failures — LV and HV switchgear, transformers, busduct, generators, UPS and standby systems, and installation defects assessed against SS 638
• Lightning, surge and over-voltage damage — a disproportionate share of regional losses given Singapore’s exceptional lightning density
• Data centre incidents — power train and cooling failures, and the very large business interruption claims that follow in a market of this concentration
• Fire origin and cause where the suspected source is an MEP system, plus the performance of active and passive fire protection under the SCDF Fire Code
• Renewables and energy storage — rooftop and floating solar PV, inverters, and lithium-ion battery installations
• Marine, offshore and industrial plant failures — engine room, machinery and process incidents, drawing on the region’s shipping, yard and petrochemical base
• Construction defects and professional negligence claims involving building services design, installation and commissioning
• Product liability and equipment failure investigations for manufacturers and their insurers

What the role involves

• Attending incident scenes at short notice across Singapore and the wider region — securing, recording and recovering evidence before it is lost
• Examining failed plant, components and installations, on site and under laboratory conditions
• Reviewing designs, specifications, shop drawings, commissioning records, O&M documentation and maintenance regimes
• Assessing compliance against Singapore standards and codes — SS 638 for electrical installations, SS 553 for ACMV, SCDF Fire Code and BCA requirements — as well as international codes on regional instructions
• Forming a defensible opinion on cause, and setting out the reasoning that supports it
• Producing a preliminary report, typically within three days of the site visit, followed by a full investigation report
• Writing expert reports to the standards required by the Singapore courts, SIAC arbitration and adjudication, and in time giving evidence
• Working alongside insurers, loss adjusters, solicitors, developers, contractors and other technical experts
• Participating in the firm’s peer-review process — your work is checked, and you will check others’
• Advising clients on risk mitigation drawn from patterns across previous cases

Full training in forensic method, evidential report writing and expert witness procedure is provided. Nobody is put in front of a tribunal unprepared.

Why building services engineers excel in forensic engineering

MEP is arguably the most transferable discipline into forensic investigation, because building services engineers already spend their careers on the question forensics is built around: why is this system not behaving as designed?

• Fault-finding and commissioning experience is diagnostic work already — forensics is the same reasoning with degraded evidence and higher stakes
• You understand system interdependence: how a control fault presents as a mechanical failure, and how an electrical defect presents as a water loss
• You can read schematics, schedules, specifications and commissioning records, and tell a design failure from an installation failure from a maintenance failure
• Standards fluency is directly relevant — compliance is frequently the pivot of a dispute
• Site experience tells you what correctly installed work looks like, and therefore what a defect looks like
• You are practised at structured technical writing, which is most of what a forensic engineer produces

About you

• A strong academic background is essential — a first-class or upper-second Master’s-level degree in electrical, electronic, mechanical or building services engineering, or a closely related discipline, from a well-regarded university
• A second degree (PhD or EngD) is viewed very favourably but is not required
• Solid design or delivery experience in MEP / building services — consultancy, specialist contracting, client side or facilities engineering all translate
• Depth in either electrical or mechanical, with working literacy in the other
• Professional registration is welcomed — PE registration with the Professional Engineers Board, IES membership, or Chartered Engineer status through a UK institution. Candidates working towards registration will be supported
• Excellent written English. Your reports are the product, and they will be scrutinised line by line
• A methodical, curious, evidence-led mind, and the honesty to report what the evidence shows rather than what the client hoped
• Willingness to travel across South East Asia at short notice, and comfort with fieldwork in plantrooms, risers and fire-damaged buildings
• Right to work in Singapore, or eligibility for an Employment Pass
• No prior forensic or expert witness experience is required — this is trained

What’s on offer

• A competitive package, benchmarked to the Singapore market and shaped around exper