Data Center Lead
Role details
Job location
Tech stack
Job description
As a Data Center Lead in the Hardware and Bare Metal team at i3D.net, you'll be the hands-on expert and technical lead ensuring the smooth operation of our global datacenter hardware. From our Rotterdam datacenter, you'll lead installations, troubleshoot complex issues, and maintain and upgrade infrastructure through move-add-change-delete activities. Your work directly impacts the performance and reliability of the infrastructure powering some of the world's largest gaming companies.
You'll combine strong technical ownership with practical (people) leadership: guiding others, mentoring, improving operational standards, and staying close to the technology behind servers, networks, and infrastructure. In this role you will be responsible for 1 on 1's, KPI's setting and career paths. This role is ideal for someone who enjoys taking responsibility, creating structure, and turning hands-on expertise into real-world impact., * Hardware Setup & Maintenance: Lead, install, configure, and troubleshoot datacenter hardware, including servers and network gear.
- Team Guidance: Support and manage team members in their day-to-day work and technical development.
- Leadership: Cross functioning collaboration with peers and other leaders, mentoring, career pathing and building routines in for instance 1 on 1's
- Operational Quality: Oversee tasks like swapping servers, managing cables, keeping racks organized, and ensuring work is completed to a high standard.
- Server Deployment: Set up and support RAID configurations, work with BMC ports, and image servers using tools such as PXE boot, USB installation, or other system deployment methods.
- Datacenter Standards: Follow and validate rack designs, support cooling systems, airflow management, and power distribution within a datacenter environment.
- Continuous Improvement: Identify and suggest smarter ways to work, making operations faster, safer, and more efficient.
- Technical Support: Support the team in solving more complex hardware, deployment, and infrastructure issues.
- Collaboration & Coordination: Coordinate with internal teams and vendors to handle deployments, maintenance, and new site setups.
- Escalations: Act as a point of contact for operational questions, escalations, and technical guidance within the datacenter environment.
- Documentation: Keep documentation and the knowledge base up to date, and help improve standards, procedures, and ways of working.
Tech stack
At i3D.net, your team will work with:
- Hardware: Servers, racks, network gear, BMC ports, RAID configurations, cabling, power distribution, and airflow management.
- Deployment: PXE boot, USB installation, server imaging, system deployment methods, and move-add-change-delete activities.
- Networking: TCP/IP, DNS, DHCP, connectors, cable management, SFP modules, and datacenter connectivity basics.
- Infrastructure: Linux, virtualization, Docker, NAS setups, game server hosting, and related infrastructure tooling.
- Operations: Documentation, knowledge base management, operational standards, troubleshooting, and on-call processes.
What success looks like in the first year
- You confidently lead installations, troubleshooting, and maintenance of servers, networking equipment, and supporting infrastructure.
- You've supported team members by sharing knowledge, setting standards, and helping them grow technically as well as a person.
- Your guidance helps the team work more effectively, and your ideas improve quality, speed, and reliability.
- You understand how our datacenter operations work, how servers interact with networking and virtualization layers, and how everything fits together to deliver high availability.
- You help create structure, improve documentation, and make sure recurring issues are addressed at the root cause.
Requirements
- Problem Solver: You enjoy troubleshooting hardware, analyzing issues, and figuring out why systems behave the way they do.
- Technical Know-How: You have solid experience with RAID setups, BMC ports, imaging servers, datacenter hardware, or similar infrastructure environments.
- Networking Skills: You understand networking basics such as TCP/IP, DNS, DHCP, connectors, cable management, and configuring SFP modules.
- Hands-on Experience: You have practical experience working with servers, racks, cabling, hardware deployments, or infrastructure operations in a datacenter or similar technical environment.
- Curious by Nature: You may have experimented with things like Linux, virtualization, Docker, NAS setups, or game server hosting and enjoy learning how infrastructure works behind the scenes.
- Leadership Mindset: You enjoy helping others, sharing knowledge, taking ownership, and creating structure in a technical operations environment.
- Physical Capability: You're comfortable lifting 45kg and live within 50km of our Rotterdam Datacenter for on-call shifts.
- Organized: You like to keep clean, detailed documentation and structure your workflow accordingly.
- Communication: You are fluent in English and able to communicate clearly with engineers, vendors, stakeholders, and non-technical teams. Dutch is a plus.
- Work Location: This is a hybrid role with a strong on-site presence, full-time position in Rotterdam. You'll be part of a rotating on-call schedule with additional compensation; on-call duties may occur outside business hours and can often be handled remotely.