Critical Operations Director

THE COMPANY

STACK INFRASTRUCTURE (STACK) provides digital infrastructure to scale the world’s most innovative companies. We are an award-winning industry leader in building, owning, and operating highly efficient, cost-effective wholesale, colocation, and cloud data centers. Each of our national facilities meet or exceed the highest industry standards in all operational categories of availability, security, connectivity, and physical resilience.

STACK offers the scale and geographic reach that rapidly growing hyperscale and enterprise companies need. The world runs on data. Data runs on STACK.

As a leader in STACK’s Critical Operations organization, the Critical Operations Director possesses an elite level of leadership and will be responsible for maintaining the mechanical, electrical, fire life safety, base building, and other various internal data center systems. The Critical Operations Director is responsible for all operational aspects and uptime of the data center region. The Critical Operations Director is also focused on implementation and the pursuit of operational excellence for programs related to Safety, Team, Availability, Communication, and Knowledge.

The Critical Operations Director reports to the regional SVP of Critical Operations. All data center operations site teams in the region will report to the Critical Operations Director.

The Critical Operations Director is responsible for the implementation and continuous improvement of the Data Center Operations Program at their sites. They are also accountable for employee training and ensuring all staff is adequately qualified to perform their duties, leading regular team meetings and individual 1:1 sessions. The Director leads the site teams in the development and maintenance of CAPEX and OPEX budgets, oversees project execution and management including developing scopes, obtaining proposals, creating purchase requisitions, and ensuring invoices are routed properly.

They are a people leader and mentor, responsible for the performance and conduct of all critical operations employees in their region, to create an inclusive work environment where all employees feel welcome and are empowered to be great.

Additional responsibilities include:

• Lead and implement standardized culture of always working safely across all STACK data centers.
• Data center subject matter expert for electrical, mechanical, fire life safety, and other data center systems.
• Advise the regional SVP of Critical Operations of the status of their site level preventative and corrective maintenance programs.
• Operate, monitor, maintain, and respond to abnormal conditions within the facility.
• Implement site‑level efficiency projects and maintain overall site design PUE.
• Ensure STACK preventative and predictive maintenance program is executed.
• Training and mentoring of staff.
• Manage vendor relationships and service contracts.
• Manage vendor procurement and billing process.
• Site budgeting and forecasting for both CAPEX and OPEX.
• Evaluate and critique highly detailed technical procedures for maintenance events, emergency situations, standard site evolutions, etc.
• Responsible for ensuring construction and commissioning activities do not impact existing critical operations.
• Lead development and maintain individual training plans for each employee aligned with the STACK training and development program.
• Be a customer liaison for all site level inquiries.
• Lead incident reporting and root cause analysis processes to deep dive into abnormal occurrences within the data center.
• Expert technical review of procedures.
• Expert technical review of company standards and policies.
• Manage site audits both internal and external.
• Adhere to compliance standards.
• Manage systems to avoid unplanned, client‑impacting outages.
• Manage the data floor and back of house mechanical loading capacity ensuring the cooling system operates at its highest efficiency.
• Navigate and utilize CMMS, EPMS, and BMS systems.
• Provide day‑to‑day exceptional customer service and support.
• On‑call availability is required to respond to emergency situations at the data centers.
• Take on other duties as required…