Data Center Design Governance Lead

Norconsult Telematics; Riyadh; On-site; SAR 450,000 - 675,000; Full time

Job summary

Norconsult Telematics is seeking a Data Center Design Governance Lead for an on-site role in Damascus, Syria. You will own the design-review and quality-gate process, ensuring each data center design meets requirements, target uptime tier, and applicable standards before procurement.

You will act as the design authority, provide technical leadership, manage NCRs, review EPC/IFC submittals, and guide teams through L1–L5 commissioning, with travel as needed and fluent English required.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Electrical or Mechanical Engineering; a Master's in a relevant discipline is an advantage.
• Minimum 10 to 12 years in data center or mission-critical facility design, including 4 to 5 years in design review, design assurance, or owner's-engineer roles, with at least one Tier III or above facility from concept through commissioning.
• Demonstrated experience taking designs through formal stage gates and holding designers and vendors to a defined quality standard.
• Strong working knowledge of Uptime Institute tier topology, TIA-942, and EN 50600, applied with sound judgement.
• Practical command of critical power and cooling MEP systems (UPS, switchgear, generators, DC plant, chillers, and CRAH) with NFPA, IEC, and IEEE fire and electrical standards.
• Uptime Institute Accredited Tier Designer (ATD) required, or to be obtained within the first three months; CTDC and DCDC strongly preferred.
• Chartered Engineer (CEng) or Professional Engineer (PE) registration strongly preferred.
• Strong written and spoken English required; Arabic an advantage; eligible to work in Syria; travel to data center sites within Syria as required.

Responsibilities

• Manage the design-review and quality-gate process through procurement.
• Verify traceability to requirements and reject deviations.
• Maintain independence from design production; review design partner at arm's length.
• Verify the resilience case via single-line diagrams, redundancy topology, maintainability, and single-point-of-failure analysis.
• Review critical power and cooling concepts and PUE.
• Ensure site meets target tier and applicable standards (TIA-942, EN 50600, ASHRAE).
• Issue design comments and NCRs; track closure.
• Provide design-assurance input into specifications and RFPs; support bid evaluation.
• Review EPC detailed-design and IFC submittals against approved intent.
• Chair design-change and deviation board; analyze and disposition change requests.
• Establish acceptance criteria for L1–L5 commissioning and handover through IST.
• Provide technical leadership to design and review teams throughout the lifecycle.

Skills

Data center design

Design review

Quality assurance

Engineering leadership

Technical governance

Education

Bachelor's degree in Electrical or Mechanical Engineering

Master's degree in a relevant discipline

Job description

This position is on-site based in Damascus Governorate, Syria.

Position Objective:

The Data Center Design Governance Lead will own the design-review and quality-gate process, ensuring every data center design is independently checked against the requirements, the target Uptime Institute tier, and the applicable mission-critical standards before procurement. Act as the design authority and final technical signatory, keeping critical power, cooling, connectivity, security, and resilience decisions sound and traceable through design assurance before the Engineer, Procure, Construct (EPC) stage. The ideal candidate brings strong mission-critical design-assurance expertise and an understanding of the Middle East operating context.

Job Description & Responsibilities:

• Manage the design-review and quality-gate process, taking each High-Level Design (HLD) through structured checkpoints before procurement.
• Verify that every design traces cleanly to the requirements document, and reject any design that departs from what was agreed.
• Maintain documented independence from design production, reviewing the design team and the external design partner at arm's length.
• Verify the resilience case through single-line diagrams, redundancy topology, concurrent maintainability, and single-point-of-failure analysis.
• Review the AC and DC critical power and cooling concepts, including heat-rejection redundancy, equipment selection, and design Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE).
• Confirm that each site meets its Client-designated target tier (Tier III or Tier IV per site) and complies with applicable standards, including TIA-942, EN 50600, and ASHRAE thermal guidelines.
• Issue design comments and Non-Conformance Reports (NCR), and track them to verified closure.
• Provide design‑assurance input into the technical specifications and Request for Proposal (RFP) package, and support bid evaluation on compliance.
• Review the EPC detailed-design and Issued-for-Construction (IFC) submittals against approved intent.
• Chair the design-change and deviation board, and analyse and disposition all design change requests.
• Establish the design-side acceptance criteria that feed Level 1 to Level 5 (L1 to L5) commissioning and handover, with L5 as the Integrated Systems Test (IST).
• Provide technical leadership and guidance to the design and review teams throughout the design lifecycle.

Qualifications & Experience:

• Bachelor's degree in Electrical or Mechanical Engineering; a Master's in a relevant discipline is an advantage.
• Minimum 10 to 12 years in data center or mission-critical facility design, including 4 to 5 years in design review, design assurance, or owner's-engineer roles, with at least one Tier III or above facility taken from concept through commissioning.
• Demonstrated experience taking designs through formal stage gates and holding designers and vendors to a defined quality standard.
• Strong working knowledge of Uptime Institute tier topology, TIA-942, and EN 50600, applied with sound judgement.
• Practical command of critical power and cooling MEP systems (UPS, switchgear, generators, DC plant, chillers, and CRAH) sufficient to challenge a design, together with NFPA, IEC, and IEEE fire and electrical standards.
• Uptime Institute Accredited Tier Designer (ATD) required, or to be obtained within the first three months; TIA-942 Certified Telecommunications Data Center Design Consultant (CTDC) and BICSI Data Center Design Consultant (DCDC) strongly preferred.
• Chartered Engineer (CEng via IET or IMechE) or Professional Engineer (PE) registration strongly preferred, given the weight of the design-authority sign-off.
• Strong written and spoken English required; Arabic an advantage. Open to international and Syrian candidates, who must be eligible to work in Syria subject to applicable sanctions compliance (US OFAC, EU, and UN).
• Awareness of the Syrian operating context is valued, with willingness to travel to data center sites within Syria as required.