Data Center Facilities Lead: Commissioning & Operations

OpenAI; California (MO); On-site; USD 150,000 - 230,000; Full time

Job summary

OpenAI is hiring a Facilities Operations Lead to steer commissioning, deployment, and ongoing operation of next-generation AI data centers. You will bridge data center construction with hardware landing, define commissioning plans, and own operations and maintenance for large-scale facilities.

You will work with design, construction, and hardware teams to create repeatable processes for new builds and lead hands-on operations to ensure performance and reliability of deployed infrastructure.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of experience in large-scale data center facility operations, commissioning, or critical infrastructure engineering.
• Deep familiarity with liquid-cooled IT systems, CDU and in-rack/in-row manifold design, bring-up, and servicing.
• Enjoy defining and improving infrastructure processes at the intersection of construction, hardware, and operations.
• Comfortable owning infrastructure from deployment to long-term maintenance and failure recovery.
• Experience responding to field issues and managing reliability through well-defined operational processes.

Responsibilities

• Define and execute sequences of operations, commissioning steps, and bring-up processes for mission-critical data center facilities.
• Interface with the design and hardware teams to define deployment procedures tailored to each data center and hardware configuration.
• Oversee installation, commissioning, and operational readiness of large-scale data center campuses.
• Manage monitoring, maintenance, and quality control of the data center infrastructure, including high-performance liquid cooling systems.
• Develop on-site operations staffing strategy.
• Develop and enforce procedures for planned and unplanned downtime and SLAs for critical facility components.

Skills

Data center operations

Liquid-cooled IT systems

Infrastructure processes

Ownership of deployment & maintenance

Field issue response

Tools

CDU cooling systems

In‑rack/in‑row manifold design

Job description

OpenAI is hiring a Facilities Operations Lead to steer commissioning, deployment, and ongoing operation of next-generation AI data centers. You will bridge data center construction with hardware landing, define commissioning plans, and own operations and maintenance for large-scale facilities.

You will work with design, construction, and hardware teams to create repeatable processes for new builds and lead hands-on operations to ensure performance and reliability of deployed infrastructure.