Design Manager, NA

vantagedc; Ashburn (VA); Hybrid; USD 140,000 - 210,000; Full time

Job summary

Vantage Data Centers is seeking a Design Manager to lead design quality, value engineering, and handoff to construction and operations. You will bridge New Site Development, Product, Engineering, and Construction, ensuring customer, stakeholder, and operational needs drive contract documents for predictable delivery.

The role emphasizes hyperscaler uptime, rapid delivery, and TCO optimization, with a focus on modular design, standardization, and scalable processes across a distributed portfolio.

Qualifications

• Proven ability to lead design programs across large-scale data center projects.
• Strong stakeholder management and executive-facing communication.
• Experience driving design excellence, standardization, and risk management.

Responsibilities

• Lead concept to IFC design phases for hyperscale campuses.
• Coordinate with Development, Engineering, Construction and Operations teams.
• Manage design milestones with KPIs like cost per MW and cycle time.
• Oversee external architects/consultants and ensure alignment with standards.
• Maintain alignment with resiliency, security frameworks and modular design.

Skills

Leadership

Cross-functional collaboration

Project governance

Communication

Design quality

PM tools

Tools

ClickUp

Job description

About Vantage Data Centers

Vantage Data Centers powers, cools, protects and connects the technology of the world's well-known hyperscalers, cloud providers and large enterprises. Developing and operating across North America, EMEA and Asia Pacific, Vantage has evolved data center design in innovative ways to deliver dramatic gains in reliability, efficiency and sustainability in flexible environments that can scale as quickly as the market demands.

Design Integration Group

The Design Integration Group (DIG) at Vantage is responsible for the stewardship and execution of the data center design through the project lifecyle, from early development through construction and handover to operations, and includes the Design Management, Design Engineering and Regional Product teams. Collaborating closely with the Regional Product, Design Engineering, New Site Development, Construction and Operations teams, Design Management functions as the interconnective hub that owns the project design and its reporting and communication, bridging strategy and execution to ensure design excellence, predictability, and scalability.

Position Overview

This role can be based in any of the following locations in alignment with our flexible work policy (3 days onsite, 2 days flexible): Shackelford County, TX; Denver, CO; San Antonio, TX; Columbus, OH; Port Washington, WI; Atlanta, GA, or Ashburn, VA.

The Design Manager champions design quality, value engineering, risk mitigation, commissioning readiness, and seamless handoff to construction and operations, while upholding hyperscaler customer expectations for uptime, resiliency, speed to delivery, and total cost of ownership (TCO). The Design Manager serves as the central link between New Site Development, Product, Engineering, and Construction teams, driving the design process from early concept through project handover. This role ensures that every design decision reflects customer, stakeholder, and operational needs-captured, evaluated, and translated into contract documents that enable predictable, high-quality delivery. Design Managers combine technical acumen, stakeholder fluency, and process discipline to create a repeatable, high-performing design function that balances innovation, standardization, and speed to market.

Essential Job Functions

Strategic & Cross-Functional Leadership

• Act as the connective hub coordinating all design-related communication, milestones, and deliverables across Development, Engineering, Construction, and Operations.
• Drive product standardization efforts in collaboration with the Product and Engineering teams, ensuring design solutions are both optimized and scalable.
• Represent Design Management in project governance, risk reviews, and executive updates, providing data-backed insight into performance and decision-making.
• Collaborate with Construction, Procurement, Telecom, Power, Security, Controls, Commissioning, and Operations teams
• Manage RFI resolution, design clarifications, change controls, drawing revisions, and design risk escalations

Design Oversight & Delivery Management

• Lead concept → schematic → design development → IFC (Issued for Construction) design phases for hyperscale campuses (50-500+ MW portfolios)
• Lead external architect and consultant teams, ensuring clear scope definition, performance management, and integration into internal workflows
• Oversee design milestone delivery, reporting progress against defined KPIs including cost per MW, design cycle time, and change volume
• Coordinate regional design feedback loops to improve the next generation of product and design standards
• Manage design consultants, AE firms, specialty vendors, and technical stakeholders to deliver full drawings, specifications, calculations, BIM models, and design basis documentation
• Maintain alignment with hyperscaler design standards, reference architectures, resiliency tiers, redundancy philosophies and security frameworks
• Drive modular design, repeatability, standardization, and prefabrication strategies for speed of deployment

Performance, Cost & Risk Management

• Identify value engineering (VE) opportunities that reduce cost, schedule, and complexity without reducing resilience
• Drive TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) metrics including PUE, WUE, power density optimization and redundancy tradeoffs
• Lead design risk assessments, mitigation planning, and quality control (QA/QC) audits
• Support sequencing, schedule planning, and cost modeling for multi-wave campus builds

Operational Excellence & Continuous Improvement

• Own the development and reporting of design-related metrics and dashboards.
• Lead lessons learned and change management processes to capture insights and strengthen future project predictability
• Partner with data governance and project controls to ensure data accuracy, consistency, and traceability across the portfolio
• Implement and evolve PM tools (e.g., ClickUp) to drive visibility, efficiency, and accountability across teams.

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