Data Center Design Lead - Power, Space & Cost

AI Chopping Block; San Francisco, Northern (CA, KY); Hybrid; USD 160,000 - 195,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive compensation & equity

401(k) with company match

Paid time off & holidays

Health, dental & vision insurance

Professional development & tuition

Mental health support

Commuter benefits

Daily meals allowance

Job summary

Crusoe is seeking a Data Center Design Manager to optimize data center designs for space, power, and cost. You will partner with Manufacturing, Engineering, Finance, Supply Chain, and Operations to ensure designs reflect commercial trade-offs, balancing rack density with build costs across disciplines.

You will lead standardization, evaluate new tech, and run cross-functional design reviews to deliver economics that meet targets while enabling high-density AI/ML workloads.

Qualifications

• 7+ years of experience in data center design, engineering, or infrastructure planning, with exposure to power, cooling, and space optimization trade-offs.
• Strong understanding of data center electrical and mechanical systems, power distribution, UPS, cooling architectures (air and liquid), and structural/floor loading considerations.
• Demonstrated experience partnering with commercial or business teams to translate cost and timeline constraints into engineering decisions.
• Comfort building and using cost models to compare design alternatives quantitatively.
• Excellent cross-functional communication skills, with the ability to work with both engineers and business stakeholders.
• Experience with high-density compute environments (AI/ML, HPC, or GPU-dense infrastructure) strongly preferred.
• Bachelor's degree in related field; advanced degree a plus

Responsibilities

• Design optimization: lead trade-off analysis across space, power density, and cost for new data center designs, identifying opportunities to increase compute per rack and per square foot.
• Business partnership: translate commercial requirements into concrete design specifications with Finance, Engineering, and Supply Chain.
• Power & Cooling strategy: evaluate power distribution, cooling architecture and impact on rack density.
• Cost modeling: build and maintain models comparing design alternatives on total installed cost, per kW, per rack, and per square foot.
• Standardization & reuse: develop repeatable design standards and reference architectures for multiple sites.
• Vendor & technology evaluation: assess new data center technologies for potential to improve density or deployment speed.
• Cross-Functional design reviews: run reviews with Engineering, Operations, and business stakeholders to ensure designs meet requirements and targets before lock

Skills

Data center design

Cost modeling

Cross-functional collaboration

Vendor evaluation

Communication skills

Education

Bachelor's degree in Mechanical, Electrical, or Structural Engineering, Architecture, or related field

Advanced degree a plus

Job description

Crusoe is seeking a Data Center Design Manager to optimize data center designs for space, power, and cost. You will partner with Manufacturing, Engineering, Finance, Supply Chain, and Operations to ensure designs reflect commercial trade-offs, balancing rack density with build costs across disciplines.

You will lead standardization, evaluate new tech, and run cross-functional design reviews to deliver economics that meet targets while enabling high-density AI/ML workloads.