Data Center Operations Manager (Site, Facility Operations)

Crux AI

Palo Alto (CA)

On-site

USD 180,000 - 260,000

Full time

5 days ago

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Benefits offered by this job

Health, dental, and vision coverage

Company-paid life insurance and short/

401(k) Plan with company match

Bonus potential

Competitive base compensation

Job summary

Crux AI seeks a senior facilities operations leader to own the electrical, mechanical, fire/life-safety, and controls for a high-density TPU/AI infrastructure site. You will lead the 24/7 site facility team and drive uptime, commissioning, and transition from construction to steady-state operations.

You will manage budgets, safety programs, and SLAs with colocation partners, while building a disciplined operations culture and advancing AI-enabled facility workflows.

Qualifications

10+ years in critical facility or data center operations with 5+ years leading technical teams.
Deep knowledge of electrical, mechanical, fire/life-safety systems and safety programs.
Site bring-up or major expansion experience and commissioning participation.

Responsibilities

Own 24/7 site facility operations, staff, and contractors to ensure uptime.
Operate electrical, mechanical, fire/life-safety, and controls infrastructure.
Run CMMS preventive/predictive/corrective maintenance with vendor contracts.
Enforce SOPs/MOPs/EOPs, change control, and monthly leadership reviews.
Lead incident response, escalation, root cause, and remediation.
Manage colo partner SLAs and audit maintenance records.
Support site bring-up through commissioning and acceptance criteria.
Own site budget, utility coordination, and safety programs.

Skills

Critical facility operations

Data center operations

Team management

Vendor management

AI/Automation mindset

Tools

CMMS/EAM

BMS/EPMS

Switchgear knowledge

Job description

Built to set the gold standard for integrated AI infrastructure

Crux AI is a newly formed, U.S.-based integrated AI infrastructure company created to remove the physical and operational constraints on consequential AI ambitions. Crux brings together power, high-density data centers, TPU silicon, networking, orchestration software, and ongoing operations as one integrated system.

Crux is being capitalized to plan every layer together, develop each one to demanding standards, and operate the whole system with efficiency and reliability. That gives hyperscalers, frontier AI labs, sovereign customers, enterprises, and AI-native companies greater freedom to pursue the AI they are here to create.

WHAT YOU'LL DO

You will own critical facility operations for one Crux site or campus — the electrical, mechanical, fire/life-safety, and controls infrastructure that keeps high-density, liquid-cooled TPU clusters continuously available. You will lead the 24/7 site facility team — chief engineer, shift technicians, and O&M contractors — and run the maintenance, procedures, drills, and change control that produce uptime, whether the building is Crux-owned or operated by a colocation partner you hold to SLA. In the early phase you will help bring the site to life: commissioning participation, acceptance, and the transition from construction to disciplined steady-state operations.

In this role, you will:

Establish and direct the site facility operations team — chief engineer, critical facility technicians, and contractors — with a 24/7 coverage model you design, staff, and train, maintaining highly available operations for all critical and non-critical infrastructure.
Operate and maintain the site’s electrical systems (utility interface through switchgear, generators, UPS, and distribution), mechanical plant (chilled water, direct-to-chip liquid cooling loops, CDUs, heat rejection), fire/life-safety, and BMS/EPMS controls.
Run the site maintenance program in CMMS — preventive, predictive, and corrective — with vendor and OEM service contracts managed to scope, and zero tolerance for overdue critical PMs.
Enforce operating discipline: SOPs/MOPs/EOPs current and rehearsed, change management on every energized system, drill program run on schedule, and monthly self-assessments presented to fleet leadership.
Lead site incident response for facility events end to end — detection, stabilization, escalation, root cause, corrective action — including communication when customer workloads are at risk.
On partner sites, manage the colocation operator to contracted SLAs: audit their maintenance records, witness their critical work, and enforce remedies when performance slips.
Support site bring-up: participate in commissioning through Level 5/IST, define and enforce ops acceptance criteria, tune the cooling plant to design intent in the first year, and manage warranty claims.
Own the site facility budget, utility coordination, and efficiency performance (PUE, WUE, energy cost), and run a safety-first culture (LOTO, energized work controls, working at height) with zero-compromise standards.

SIGNALS OF SUCCESS

After 60 days in this role:

Site staffing plan and 24/7 coverage model will be approved with hiring in motion.
Ops acceptance criteria will be agreed upon with construction/commissioning.

After 6 months:

CMMS is loaded with the site asset registry and PM schedules.
Procedures library is drafted for every critical system (or partner program audited, on a colo site).

After 1 year:

First site is operating with 24/7 coverage under the full standards library.
Preventive maintenance program is live in CMMS with zero overdue critical PMs.
Incident and change management program running.
Colo partner SLA and audit program in force at partner sites.

EXPERIENCES, ATTRIBUTES AND MINDSET THAT INDICATE A GOOD MATCH

Experiences

10+ years in critical facility or data center operations — including power generation, HVAC, or mission-critical military/industrial environments — with 5+ years managing technical teams and vendors operating, maintaining, and troubleshooting electrical, mechanical, and controls infrastructure in a 24/7 environment.
Comprehensive working knowledge of electrical topologies (N+1/2N, UPS, generators, switchgear), mechanical and liquid cooling systems, fire/life-safety, and building automation — plus the safety programs (LOTO, hazardous energy control) that govern work on them.
Site bring-up or major expansion experience: commissioning participation, acceptance testing, and the construction-to-operations handoff on a mission-critical facility.

Attributes

Owner of the building. When the plant alarms at 2am it is yours until the site is stable and the root cause is written down. You are comfortable being the most senior Crux person on site and making the call under pressure.
Discipline without bureaucracy. You run tight MOPs, drills, and change control because they prevent outages, and you kill process that does not — and you can tell the difference.

Mindset

High tolerance for ambiguity. The site will energize before every procedure exists. You write the SOP, run it, fix it, and hand it to the next site rather than waiting for a standard to arrive.
AI-agentic first. Fluent with AI agents — or committed to becoming so quickly — and you embed them as first principles in how you and your team work, defaulting to agentic workflows before adding headcount or process.

Nice to have (preferred, not required)

7+ years in Tier III/IV or hyperscale data center environments (Meta, Google, AWS, Microsoft, or a major colo operator).
Direct-to-chip liquid cooling plant operations experience (CDUs, water chemistry, loop commissioning and tuning).
Trade certifications (Electrical, HVAC, Controls), stationary engineer license, or military/nuclear power background.
CMMS/EAM administration experience and comfort with energy and reliability analytics.
Experience managing a colocation operator to SLA from the tenant side.

Salary Range Information

The annual salary range for this position has been estimated based on market data and other factors. However, a salary higher or lower than this range may be appropriate for a candidate whose qualifications differ meaningfully from those listed in the job description.

About Crux