Critical Operations Integration Lead

STACK Infrastructure; Sterling (VA); On-site; USD 110,000 - 170,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical, dental, and vision insurance

401K with company match

Annual bonus

Flexible spending accounts

Job summary

STACK Infrastructure seeks a Critical Operations Integration Lead to bridge construction, commissioning, and ongoing operations. You will own turnover readiness, verify documentation, and ensure data assets are complete before handing off to site teams.

You’ll identify patterns, drive process improvements, and partner across Construction, Cx, and Operations to raise delivery quality. You will bring 5–8 years in critical infrastructure, strong analytical skills, and hands-on commissioning

Qualifications

• Must have 5–8 years in critical infrastructure environments.
• Analytical instinct to categorize findings and produce actionable outputs.
• Hands-on familiarity with commissioning processes, turnover docs, and BMS/EPMS systems.
• Knowledge of construction QA/QC and GC execution under schedule pressure.
• Experience speaking credibly with site teams during handover.
• Cross-functional collaboration with Construction, Cx, and Operations.
• Understanding of commissioning scope and verification.
• Project ownership mindset for gaps between teams.
• Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Construction Management, or related field.

Responsibilities

• Own formal readiness criteria and a risk-based go/no-go turnover register.
• Conduct pre-turnover readiness checks and evaluate handover packages.
• Witness equipment tests and operator alarm tests.
• Verify submittals, one-lines, and warranties are complete and accessible.
• Ensure CMMS/EAM data is loaded and usable before turnover.
• Clarify ownership of punch lists and deferred scope at handover.
• Identify issues across construction and commissioning to assign owners.
• Ensure critical spares and vendor support are in place before turnover.
• Publish KPIs related to readiness quality escapes.
• Collaborate with Construction and Cx to integrate findings into standards and playbooks.

Skills

Critical infra

Analytical thinking

Commissioning knowledge

Turnover documentation

BMS/EPMS systems

Cross-functional collaboration

Operations experience

Builder mindset

Education

Bachelor’s degree in Engineering/Construction Management or related field

Tools

CMMS platforms

Job description

Company Overview

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 meets or exceeds 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 STACK scales its portfolio across the Americas, ensuring that new capacity is delivered to the operational quality bar required from day one becomes increasingly complex — and increasingly critical. The Critical Operations Integration Lead sits at the intersection of construction, commissioning, and operations. This role is present during the final phases of delivery to ensure that what gets handed to site teams is complete, validated, and truly ready to operate — and builds the cross‑site perspective that allows STACK to continuously raise the quality of how we deliver. That means field presence and pattern recognition in equal measure: identifying what recurring issues trace back to their source, and feeding that intelligence into the standards and processes that govern how we build and turn over capacity.

Key Responsibilities

Site Presence & Readiness

• Own formal readiness criteria and a risk‑based go/no‑go register for turnover. Conduct pre‑turnover readiness checks, evaluating handover packages for completeness and alignment with STACK's operational standards
• Perform site walks focused on maintainability, safety access, operator touchpoints, and as‑left equipment state prior to handover
• Witness critical equipment functional performance tests and operator‑facing BMS/EPMS alarm and controls tests
• Verify that submittals, one‑lines, O&M manuals, and warranty documentation are organized, complete, and accessible to site operators before handover
• Ensure CMMS/EAM data is loaded and usable before turnover
• Ensure punch‑list items and deferred scope have clear ownership at handover, not inherited by default by the operations team
• Identify issues that fall between teams as construction and commissioning phases close, and ensure those issues have a defined owner and resolution path before they become an operations burden
• Verify critical spares, consumables, special tools, and vendor support paths are in place
• Own early‑life support and warranty‑period defect capture with a standard defect taxonomy
• Publish portfolio KPIs tied to readiness quality escapes
• Partner with Construction in turnover meetings and walk‑downs as an ops‑interest voice, without adding gates or friction
• Collaborate with Commissioning to carry operator‑impact findings forward without altering Cx execution

Quality Escape Intelligence

• Observe across sites and builds to identify thematic patterns in how quality issues originate and escape detection, not to duplicate the punch‑list or Cx log but to surface what those logs collectively reveal about process and delivery gaps
• Trace recurring themes upstream to their origin: a vendor QC gap, a GC execution pattern, a Cx scope boundary, or an acceptance criterion without teeth
• Translate findings into process‑level insights and evidence‑backed recommendations: delivery process acceptance criteria updates, operations readiness checklist additions, GC contract requirements, or Cx scoping changes
• Provide leadership with the clarity needed to decide what's worth fixing at the source and what's worth managing in operations, a distinction that currently gets made by default rather than by design
• Work with construction, commissioning, and operations partners to ensure findings flow into the right downstream standards, training programs, and operational playbooks

MUST‑HAVE QUALIFICATIONS

• 5–8 years in critical infrastructure environments, with meaningful exposure to both the build/Cx side and operations
• Analytical instinct: able to categorize findings, spot patterns, and build structured outputs others can act on
• Hands‑on familiarity with commissioning processes, turnover documentation, and BMS/EPMS systems from an operational use perspective
• Working knowledge of construction QA/QC and what good GC execution looks like versus what gets accepted under schedule pressure
• Enough operations experience to know what breaks operators post‑handoff, and to speak credibly with site teams
• Cross‑functional credibility: able to work alongside Construction and Cx as a partner while holding an independent ops‑interest perspective
• Working knowledge of commissioning processes and what they do and don’t verify, whether from a Cx, construction, or senior operations background.
• Builder mindset: this role will create things that don’t exist yet, the right candidate is energized by that
• Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Construction Management, or related field, or equivalent experience

PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS

• Direct data center experience in construction, commissioning, or hyperscale environments
• Familiarity with controls deployment quality: point‑to‑point testing, logic mapping, alarming, and naming standards
• Experience with CMMS platforms and understanding of how turnover quality affects long‑term maintenance performance
• Exposure to quality management systems or reliability‑centered methodologies (FMEA, RCM, or equivalent)
• Experience contributing to process improvement at a systems level, not just identifying problems but designing the mechanism that prevents recurrence

COMPETENCIES

• Pattern‑recognition thinker, sees systemic signal in what others treat as isolated incidents
• Operationally grounded, thinks like the person who has to run the building, not just deliver it
• Collaborative without being conflict‑avoidant, surfaces difficult findings constructively and with credibility
• Clear communicator who can translate field observations into structured intelligence for leadership
• Bias for closure, findings have owners, issues don’t disappear into the gap between teams

THIS MIGHT BE RIGHT FOR YOU

• You’ve spent time on the build side and kept thinking “whoever operates this is going to have a problem” — and you want to be the person who does something about it
• You’ve seen the same failure modes appear at multiple sites and felt frustrated that nobody was connecting the dots
• You’re drawn to the space between teams where things fall through, and you have a natural instinct to own that gap
• You build things: frameworks, processes, structure. You find satisfaction in creating something others can use after you
• You want a role that will be shaped significantly by the person in it
• You are a strong communicator, persuasive and clear, blending analytics with experience in decision‑making
• You do not get flustered easily. You can juggle multiple priorities while balancing urgent requests with shifting timelines and deliverables
• You are a team builder. You take the time to understand and develop the strengths of your resources while formulating long‑term plans for the growth and success of the team
• You are naturally curious and driven toward continual improvement. While you celebrate your successes, you take time to review and analyze campaigns for future learning

WHY STACK?

• Competitive compensation package with strong benefits, including medical, dental, and vision insurance, a 401K program, flexible spending accounts, and a monthly cell phone subsidy
• Retirement plan with company match
• Annual bonus/merit or commission opportunity
• Robust mental health support program
• Generous HSA employer contribution
• Flexible spending accounts and voluntary benefit options such as critical illness and hospital indemnity coverage
• Employee resource groups foster connection and understanding
• Company events offered in‑person and virtually
• Culture of appreciation with peer‑to‑peer recognition and rewards programs… we’re growing – a great time to join and make an impact!

STACK is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, age, national origin, mental or physical disability, genetic information, veteran status, or any other status protected by federal, state, or local law.

Note to external agencies: We are not accepting any blind submissions or resumes/cvs from recruitment agencies. Any candidates sent to STACK Infrastructure, Inc. will not be accepted or considered as a submission without a signed agreement in place. Fees will not be paid in the event a candidate submitted by a recruiter without an agreement in place is hired; such resumes will be deemed the sole property of STACK Infrastructure, Inc.