Data Center Operations Lead

DigitalOcean; Seattle (WA); On-site; USD 131,000 - 164,000; Full time

Job summary

DigitalOcean seeks an experienced Data Center Manager to run on-site operations in the Wenatchee data center, leading a technical team and driving reliability, performance, and scale. You will oversee compute, storage, and networking deployments, including liquid cooling, while coordinating with global centers and internal stakeholders.

You will mentor staff, optimize facilities, and work with供应链 to maintain inventory, sizing infrastructure to meet growth, and ensuring safety and uptime in a

Qualifications

• 6-10 years of progressive experience in data center operations.
• 3+ years of team leadership or site management in a high-scale environment.
• Deep technical knowledge of data center systems—compute, storage, networking, airflow/liquid/cooling.
• Experience with GPU deployments; familiarity with liquid cooling infrastructure or high-density rack solutions is a plus.
• Strong understanding of facility infrastructure, including electrical systems, power distribution, UPS, and cooling design principles.
• Hands-on experience with data center health monitoring, rack design, structured cabling, and server manageability tools.
• Experience using work tracking tools (e.g., Jira) and applying Kanban or similar agile workflows to visualize work, identify bottlenecks, and optimize flow.
• Brings a systems-oriented mindset focused on team health, throughput, predictability, and accountability over time.
• Strong leadership skills: capable of driving performance, setting goals, and creating a culture of ownership and continuous improvement.
• Excellent problem-solving and communication skills; you enjoy working cross-functionally to make things better.
• Global mindset and experience working with geographically distributed teams; comfortable aligning across time zones and infrastructure standards.
• Ability to be on-call for escalations outside of business hours.
• Must be able to lift up to 50 lbs and be on your feet during extended work sessions.

Responsibilities

• Managing on-site operations of the Wenatchee data center, overseeing a team of technicians and engineers to ensure uptime, efficiency, and safety.
• Leading and mentoring a distributed team across our EAT location; managing staffing, scheduling, performance, and career development.
• Overseeing deployment, maintenance, and optimization of compute, storage, and networking infrastructure—including liquid GPU-based systems.
• Managing the physical infrastructure environment—including power delivery, airflow, and liquid cooling—to support high-density compute workloads and liquid cooling systems where applicable.
• Working with facilities and infrastructure engineering teams to understand mechanical and electrical designs, contribute to floor planning, and ensure alignment between facility capabilities and compute growth.
• Partnering with internal teams, including data center architects and cloud product owners, to align infrastructure buildouts with evolving customer and platform requirements.
• Collaborating globally with regional data center managers and infrastructure leads in SFO, Toronto, New York, London, Frankfurt, Amsterdam, Bangalore, Singapore, and Sydney to: share operational patterns and best practices; raise awareness of local and global risks; align on scalable infrastructure plans; drive cross-site consistency and innovation.
• Working closely with the Supply Chain and Asset Management team to maintain inventory accuracy, streamline inbound/outbound logistics, and ensure component readiness.
• Aligning with the Capacity Management team to forecast and fulfill infrastructure demand, enabling rapid deployment in support of customer growth and product launches.
• Managing day-to-day task flow through Jira, using Kanban methodology to ensure smooth operations and continuous delivery.
• Monitoring, maintaining, and developing key performance indicators (KPIs) to ensure consistent operational performance, providing regular updates to leadership on progress and outcomes.
• Collaborating with external vendors, managing RMAs, shipping/receiving, and inventory control.
• Serving as the local escalation point and incident lead for operational or technical challenges.

Skills

Data center leadership

Cross-functional leadership

Jira / Kanban

Team mentorship

Problem solving

Communication

On-call availability

Systems thinking

Global collaboration

Leadership under pressure

Tools

Jira

Liquid cooling systems

GPU deployments

Power distribution

Job description

DigitalOcean seeks an experienced Data Center Manager to run on-site operations in the Wenatchee data center, leading a technical team and driving reliability, performance, and scale. You will oversee compute, storage, and networking deployments, including liquid cooling, while coordinating with global centers and internal stakeholders.

You will mentor staff, optimize facilities, and work with供应链 to maintain inventory, sizing infrastructure to meet growth, and ensuring safety and uptime in a