Director, Mission-Critical Data Center Design

Invenergy; Chicago (IL); Hybrid; USD 215,000 - 255,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical insurance

401k

Paid time off

Job summary

Invenergy is headquartered in Chicago and seeks a Director, Data Center Design & Engineering to join its Digital Infrastructure portfolio. This is an owner-side design leadership role guiding projects from development through turnover, coordinating with external architects, engineers, and vendors.

The role supports data center facilities and multi-building campuses, aligning technical requirements with scalable standards.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Electrical or Mechanical Engineering.
• 12+ years of progressive engineering experience, including at least 5 years of direct data center design and engineering experience.
• Demonstrated experience leading multidisciplinary MEP design for large, technically complex data center projects.
• Deep technical expertise in either electrical or mechanical mission-critical systems, with demonstrated ability to lead integrated MEP design across both disciplines.
• Demonstrated experience developing, reviewing, or managing Basis of Design documents, owner’s project requirements, design criteria, technical specifications, engineering standards, and multidisciplinary design packages.
• Strong understanding of data center reliability and redundancy architectures, including N, N+1, distributed redundant, and 2N, and the associated tradeoffs among availability, maintainability, cost, efficiency, and operational complexity.
• Experience directing and challenging external architects, engineering firms, specialty consultants, commissioning providers, and equipment manufacturers in an owner, developer, operator, hyperscaler, or comparable environment.
• Demonstrated ability to evaluate technical alternatives considering reliability, cost, schedule, constructability, equipment lead times, efficiency, maintainability, and lifecycle performance.
• Strong leadership, judgment, and communication skills, including the ability to influence multidisciplinary teams and present complex technical recommendations clearly to senior and executive leadership.
• Ability and willingness to travel to project sites, engineering partners, manufacturers, and other locations as required.
• Eligible to work in the United States without the need for employer visa sponsorship now or in the future.

Responsibilities

• Serve as Invenergy’s senior owner-side design and engineering leader for assigned data center projects, providing technical leadership from site evaluation and concept development through detailed design, construction support, commissioning, and turnover.
• Lead and direct external AEC firms, MEP engineers, specialty consultants, commissioning providers, and equipment manufacturers, establishing clear technical requirements, deliverables, accountability, and decision pathways.
• Establish and maintain Basis of Design documents, owner’s project requirements, design criteria, technical specifications, engineering standards, reference architectures, and design-review processes.
• Lead owner-side technical integration across electrical, mechanical, controls, plumbing, fire/life-safety, and other mission-critical systems, while coordinating closely with architecture, civil, structural, telecommunications, security, utilities, construction, and operations.
• Lead key design decisions involving power architecture, cooling architecture, redundancy, reliability, maintainability, controls, scalability, efficiency, constructability, equipment strategy, and lifecycle performance.
• Translate customer and tenant technical requirements into project-specific design criteria while protecting appropriate standardization, repeatability, portfolio scalability, and commercial discipline.
• Develop scalable reference designs and technical product standards that balance customer flexibility with repeatability, speed-to-market, cost discipline, reliability, and constructability.
• Apply deep technical knowledge of mission-critical infrastructure to challenge design assumptions, identify critical system interfaces, evaluate technical risks, and determine when specialized engineering analysis or additional subject-matter expertise is required.
• Lead structured technical reviews through key project stages and ensure material design issues are identified and resolved before they affect procurement, construction, commissioning, or customer commitments.
• Partner with Development during early-stage project evaluation to assess technical feasibility, utility interfaces, cooling and water strategies, site constraints, phasing, scalability, constructability, and major technical risks.
• Partner with Construction and the Senior Technical Program Manager to ensure approved designs are executable, coordinated, aligned with procurement and schedule requirements, and responsive to field conditions.
• Evaluate technical alternatives considering reliability, CAPEX, schedule, equipment availability, constructability, energy and water performance, operational complexity, maintainability, and lifecycle value.
• Establish the technical framework for commissioning and integrated systems testing, ensuring design intent, performance requirements, controls sequences, failure-mode expectations, and acceptance criteria are clearly defined and validated before turnover.
• Monitor evolving customer requirements and data center technologies, including AI/HPC, high-density compute, liquid cooling, advanced power architectures, modularization, prefabrication, and changing rack densities, and incorporate relevant developments into Invenergy’s standards and product strategy.
• Provide concise, decision-oriented recommendations to senior leadership, translating complex technical issues into the issue, business impact, alternatives, recommended path, and decision required.

Skills

Leadership

Communication

Project management

External partnership management

Education

Bachelor’s degree in Electrical or Mechanical Engineering

Tools

PE license

Job description

Invenergy is headquartered in Chicago and seeks a Director, Data Center Design & Engineering to join its Digital Infrastructure portfolio. This is an owner-side design leadership role guiding projects from development through turnover, coordinating with external architects, engineers, and vendors.

The role supports data center facilities and multi-building campuses, aligning technical requirements with scalable standards.