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Fifty Under Technical Advisor Hiring Form

Fifty Under builds ground-source geothermal for farms. We work with farms, greenhouses, and other agricultural operations across North America, and we deliver either a system the farm owns or heating and cooling on a fixed monthly fee.

Every engagement starts the same way: we produce a site intelligence report on one operation- its energy picture, thermal loads, subsurface conditions, available incentives, and a modeled cost range- and give it to the grower at no charge. It is the first thing a farm ever sees from us, and it is what a decision eventually gets made on.

We are looking for a licensed or certified geothermal designer to review the studies we produce, correct what we get wrong, and develop the parts that need real engineering judgment. This is a contract role, fully remote, taken assignment-by-assignment. No minimum and no exclusivity.

Role Description:

Responsibilities

Review our draft studies. We build a structured draft from public data. You read it as an engineer and tell us where it is wrong, where it is overconfident, and where it is quietly guessing.

Develop the load model. Peak and annual thermal loads for barns, greenhouses, growing houses and processing plants, built from equipment schedules and production data rather than floor area.

Size the ground loop. Bore length, configuration, spacing and depth for annually imbalanced, heating-dominated loads, and say plainly when a site needs a test bore before anyone commits.

Pressure-test the economics. Sanity-check installed cost per ton, seasonal COP and heat-recovery capture rates against systems you have actually seen built.

Write what needs judgment. The risks, the where-we-would-start recommendation, and an honest account of what cannot be known without a site walk.

Seal work where you are licensed and willing. Optional, and never on something you have not properly reviewed

Requirements

IGSHPA Certified Geothermal Designer (CGD) or the equivalent Certified GeoExchange Designer credential, current and in good standing.

Five or more years designing commercial ground-source systems, not residential only.

Vertical closed-loop borefield sizing on projects of 50 tons and up, with real numbers you can recall.

Cold-climate experience, IECC zone 5 or 6, where the design heating load actually bites.

Working fluency in ground loop design and load modeling software (GLD, GLHEPRO or comparable).

A willingness to write down what you do not know. Our reports say so explicitly, and we will not publish false confidence.

Your own professional liability coverage

Nice to have

Professional Engineer (PE), licensed and in good standing. Strongly preferred, and required if you would be sealing documents.

Agricultural, dairy, greenhouse or food-processing facility experience.

Heat recovery from process refrigeration into a hot-water load.

Specifying or commissioning formation thermal conductivity test bores.

Familiarity with NYSERDA, utility clean-heat programs, or §48 incentive requirements.

High-temperature water-to-water equipment, and a clear view of where its efficiency stops making sense.