Principal Data Center Engineer
Role details
Job location
Tech stack
Job description
The Principal Data Center Engineer is a senior-level technical leader responsible for the design, architecture, optimization, and operation of enterprise-scale data center infrastructure. This role drives innovation, standards, and best practices across data center environments, ensuring high availability, scalability, efficiency, and security. The Principal Engineer partners with cross-functional teams, influences strategic direction, and mentors engineering teams. What the role offers
- Define and lead thedata center infrastructure strategy, including compute, storage, network, and facility integration.
- Architect scalable, resilient, and cost-efficient solutions across on-premises, colocation, and hybrid/cloud environments.
- Establish and governengineering standards, reference architectures, and design patterns.
- Lead thedesign and deployment of large-scale data center environments.
- Develop detailed engineering documentation, including: high-level and low-level designs, capacity planning models, power and cooling requirements
- Lead long-termcapacity planning and forecasting for compute, storage, network, power, and space.
- Manage lifecycle of infrastructure assets, including refresh and decommissioning strategies.
- Define SLAs, KPIs, and reliability frameworks (SRE practices, incident response, root cause analysis).
- Optimize performance, utilization, and energy efficiency (PUE improvements).
- Drive automation of operations using scripting and infrastructure-as-code.
- Ensure adherence toindustry standards (e.g., ISO 27001, SOC 2, Uptime Institute tiers).
- Act as a technical advisor to leadership and stakeholders.
Requirements
Do you have experience in VMware?, Do you have a Master's degree?, * Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or related field (or equivalent experience).
- 10+ years of experience in data center engineering, infrastructure architecture, or related roles.
- Deep expertise in:
- Data center infrastructure (power, cooling, racks, cabling)
- Compute, storage, and networking systems
- Virtualization and cloud integration
- Strong understanding ofhigh-availability architectures and disaster recovery.
- Experience withcolocation providers and vendor management.
- Proven track record of leading large-scale infrastructure projects.
- Strong analytical, problem-solving, and communication skills.
Preferred qualifications
- Experience with hyperscale or enterprise data center environments.
- Knowledge ofAI/ML infrastructure, GPU clusters, or HPC systems.
- Familiarity withsustainability initiatives and energy optimization.
- Experience with DCIM tools and observability platforms.
- Relevant certifications, such as: Uptime Institute (ATD, ATS),Cisco, VMware, or cloud certifications (Azure, AWS, GCP)