Controls Application Engineer Jobs in Chicago, IL

About us

Johnson Controls, a global leader in thermal management, mission-critical building systems, energy efficiency, and decarbonization, helps customers use energy more productively, reduce carbon emissions, and operate with the precision and resilience required in rapidly expanding industries such as data centers, healthcare, pharmaceuticals, advanced manufacturing, and higher education.

For more than 140 years, Johnson Controls has delivered performance where it really matters. Backed by advanced technology, lifecycle services and an industry-leading field organization, we elevate customer performance, turn goals into real-world results and help move society forward.

What you will do

Johnson Controls is a global leader in smart, healthy, and sustainable buildings. In this role, you will help shape service solutions that support customer uptime, operational performance, and long-term asset value across commercial real estate and industrial portfolios.

As the Service Sales Applications Engineer, Commercial Real Estate & Industrial Strategic Accounts, you will lead the development of complex service solutions and commercial proposals for large, multi-site customers. You will partner closely with Strategic Account sales teams and Service Sales Enablement to create technically sound, financially compelling, and operationally executable service agreements, lifecycle strategies, controls service solutions, and asset optimization programs.

How you will do it

• Support National and Strategic Account sales teams in the pursuit of large, complex, multi-region service opportunities.

• Lead technical discovery, solution architecture, scope development, and proposal strategy for commercial real estate and industrial customers.

• Develop service agreement structures, labor and material programs, asset lifecycle strategies, capital planning support, and bundled service solutions.

• Create customer-facing proposal content that clearly communicates scope, value, assumptions, exclusions, risks, and implementation approach.

• Participate in customer presentations, executive solution reviews, site strategy discussions, and national account planning sessions.

• Serve as a subject matter expert for service applications in commercial real estate portfolios, corporate campuses, industrial facilities, manufacturing environments, distribution sites, and large enterprise customer portfolios.

• Partner with local service operations and controls teams to validate feasibility, staffing assumptions, service delivery models, and site-specific requirements.

• Support lifecycle planning for HVAC assets, controls infrastructure, connected services, and high-value repair or replacement opportunities across multi-site portfolios.

• Coordinate solution development across areas, markets, branches, operations leaders, finance partners, controls teams, and account stakeholders.

• Support costing, labor planning, pricing strategy, margin evaluation, and deal review for supported opportunities.

• Identify technical, operational, contractual, and commercial risks during pursuit development and recommend mitigation strategies.

• Develop reusable proposal language, scope templates, estimating assumptions, vertical-specific solution libraries, and best practices.

• Own the quality of the solution and the commercial storyby bringing together technical scope, pricing logic, assumptions, and delivery considerations into one clear proposal.

• Stay close to the workby validating site realities with operations, controls, finance, and branch partners before commitments are made to the customer.

• Focus on what matters most to the customerby translating uptime, tenant experience, cost predictability, sustainability, and asset life into scalable service offerings.

• Improve every dayby capturing lessons learned, refining templates, and strengthening proposal consistency across strategic pursuits.

• Win as one teamby building trust across Strategic Accounts, Service Sales Enablement, and field teams so national pursuits align with execution across all 7 North America areas.

What we look for

Required

• 10+ years of experience in HVAC service, controls, service operations, technical sales, applications engineering, project development, facilities management, orsolutionsengineering.

• Demonstrated experience supporting commercial real estate, industrial, manufacturing, property management, corporate campus, or multi-site enterprise customers.

• Strong understanding of HVAC service agreements, labor and material proposals, controls service, asset lifecycle management, and field service execution.

• Experience supporting large, complex, multi-site or national account opportunities requiring coordination across multiple regions or operating teams.

• Strong commercial acumen with the ability to evaluate scope, pricing assumptions, risk, margin, customer value, andimplementationfeasibility.

• Ability to influence cross-functional stakeholders without direct authority, including Strategic Accounts, field operations, finance, controls, legal, and service sales enablement teams.

• Excellent executive communication, proposal writing, presentation, facilitation, and customer-facing solution development skills.

Johnson Controls International plc. is an equal employment opportunity and affirmative action employer and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, protected veteran status, genetic information, sexual orientation, gender identity, status as a qualified individual with a disability or any other characteristic protected by law. To view more information about your equal opportunity and non-discrimination rights as a candidate, visit EEO is the Law. If you are an individual with a disability and you require an accommodation during the application process, please visit here.