Principal Advisor, Data Center Facilities

World Wide Technology; Maryland Heights (MO); On-site; USD 220,000 - 270,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health & wellness benefits

401k with company matching

PTO & holidays

Tuition reimbursement

Family planning benefits

Pet insurance

Job summary

World Wide Technology (WWT) seeks a Principal Advisor, Data Center Facilities to lead high-density data center engagements and grow the FIT practice. You will advise senior client executives on builds, collaborate with OEMs and partners, and translate architectural requirements into facility solutions globally.

The role requires 12+ years in data center facilities, deep discipline expertise, and strong leadership across teams and trade partners.

Qualifications

• Significant experience (12+ years) in data center facilities.
• Deep expertise in at least one core facilities discipline.
• Experience advising senior stakeholders in a consulting/owner-side role.
• Experience qualifying and overseeing trade partners (GCs, MEP subcontractors).
• Knowledge of high-density AI/HPC facility requirements, including liquid cooling.
• Bachelor's degree in engineering or related field.

Responsibilities

• Advise client executives on data center buildouts from design through commissioning.
• Inspect and qualify trade partners to meet design intent, schedule, and quality standards.
• Found and grow the FIT practice: methodology, offerings, and a team of facilities architects.
• Lead facility readiness assessments, design reviews, and executive workshops.
• Build executive relationships and lead cross-disciplinary engagements.

Skills

Data center facilities

Executive leadership

Client advisory

Trade partner oversight

Global delivery

Education

Bachelor's degree in engineering or related field

Tools

Electrical/Power

Mechanical/Cooling

Construction/Commissioning

Job description

World Wide Technology (WWT) strives to make a new world happen. WWT's work benefits clients and partners as much as it does its people and community across the globe.

Founded in 1990, WWT brings together strategy, deep technical expertise and world-class partnerships to help public and private sector organizations design, build and scale intelligent AI, digital, cybersecurity, cloud and infrastructure solutions. Through its Advanced Technology Center (ATC)—a collaborative ecosystem featuring state-of-the-art hardware and software—WWT enables clients and partners to conceptualize, test and validate innovative technology and then deploy solutions at scale using its global integration and distributions capabilities.

With more than 14,000 team members and over 60 locations globally, WWT's culture—grounded in core values and leadership philosophies—has been recognized by Fortune® and Great Place to Work for its commitment to innovation, trust and creating a great place to work for all. WWT provides products and services to large enterprise, global service provider and public sector clients in up to 130 countries across six continents. Softchoice, a World Wide Technology company, supports commercial and SMB markets in the U.S. and Canada.

Want to work with highly motivated individuals on high-performance teams? Join WWT today!

What is the Facilities, Infrastructure & Technology (FIT) practice and why join?

Within WWT's Technical Delivery & Engineering organization, FIT is our newest advisory capability, built at the intersection of the physical and digital data center. As AI factories push facilities beyond traditional limits — liquid-cooled racks exceeding 100kW, gigawatt-scale campuses, compressed construction timelines — our clients need advisors fluent in both the building and the architecture it must serve. FIT advises client executives across the data center lifecycle, from site readiness through commissioning, on active engagements around the world. You will be the founding member of this practice.

Position Overview

The Principal Advisor, Data Center Facilities serves as WWT's senior client advisor and practice builder for data center facilities on strategic AI infrastructure engagements. This is an advisory and owner's-representative role — WWT does not act as engineer-of-record — carrying director-level expectations for leadership, business acumen, and client influence. This role is accountable for:

• Advising client executives on data center buildouts — primarily greenfield, with selected retrofit-for-AI-density work — spanning power, cooling, physical floor planning, fire suppression, and construction readiness for state-of-the-art high-performance architectures.
• Inspecting and qualifying trade partners, and collaborating with facility and technology OEMs, to ensure buildouts meet design intent, schedule, and quality standards.
• Founding and growing the FIT practice: methodology, offerings, and a committed team of facilities discipline architects hired within the first year.

The Principal Advisor operates at the intersection of construction and computing — translating high-performance architecture requirements into facility realities, and facility constraints into architecture decisions — while building the trusted executive relationships that anchor long-term client partnerships. You will step into multiple active global engagements from day one.

Key Responsibilities

Client Leadership

• Serve as trusted facilities advisor to client executives (CIO, CTO, COO, heads of infrastructure and real estate), translating ambiguous requirements into actionable facility roadmaps.
• Lead facility readiness assessments, design reviews, and executive workshops; own recommendations and their outcomes.
• Act as executive sponsor for facilities workstreams on strategic engagements.

Facilities Advisory & Solution Architecture

• Assess and advise on utility power and electrical distribution, air and liquid cooling architectures, white space and floor planning, fire suppression and life safety, and construction sequencing and commissioning.
• Architect integrated facility solutions in partnership with WWT's AI, networking, and infrastructure teams — bridging IT loads to facility capabilities.
• Establish governance models, success criteria, and risk management approaches for facilities workstreams within larger engagements.
• Maintain currency with AI-density reference architectures and facility OEM ecosystems.

Trade Partner & Vendor Oversight

• Evaluate, qualify, and oversee general contractors, MEP subcontractors, engineering firms, and commissioning agents on client buildouts.
• Review designs, plans, deliverables, and project progress to ensure alignment with customer objectives and industry best practices.
• Identify risks, gaps, and quality concerns and proactively drive corrective actions.
• Build co-delivery relationships with facility OEMs and A&E and commissioning partners.

Practice Building & Talent

• Develop FIT methodology, deliverable standards, and engagement playbooks; contribute practice IP and accelerators.
• Support pursuit teams: scope engagements, shape proposals, and price advisory work.
• Recruit, hire, and lead a team of facilities discipline architects (electrical, mechanical/HVAC, plumbing/piping); represent WWT in industry forums.

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Qualifications And Requirements

If your experience doesn't match every preferred qualification below but you know this work, we encourage you to apply.

Required

• Significant experience (typically 12+ years) in data center / mission-critical facilities, including direct accountability for major phases of new-build data center projects (design review, construction oversight, or commissioning). Data center-specific experience is required; general commercial construction alone does not qualify.
• Deep expertise in at least one core facilities discipline — electrical/power, mechanical/cooling, or construction/commissioning — with working fluency across power, cooling, floor planning, fire suppression, and construction.
• Experience advising senior stakeholders in a consulting, advisory, owner's-representative, or owner-side leadership capacity.
• Experience qualifying and overseeing trade partners (GCs, MEP subcontractors, commissioning agents).
• Working knowledge of high-density AI/HPC facility requirements, including liquid cooling and high-density power distribution.
• Bachelor's degree in engineering or a related field, or equivalent professional, military, or trade experience.

Preferred

• Electrical/power as the deep discipline.
• Recent direct experience on liquid-cooled, high-density (60kW+ rack) designs.
• Experience across multiple international code jurisdictions and standards.
• Demonstrated success standing up a team, practice, program, or office.
• Credentials such as PE license, Uptime Institute ATD/ATS, DCEP, CDCDP, or ASHRAE participation.
• Familiarity with commissioning levels (L1-L5) and construction-lifecycle quality assurance.

Leadership & Interpersonal

• Executive presence with the ability to engage, influence, and build lasting relationships at the senior-most client levels.
• Excellent written and verbal communication; able to synthesize complex facility trade-offs into clear executive narratives.
• Collaborative working style across engineering, sales, and delivery teams.

Travel: Up to 30%, including international.

Differentiating Competencies

• Bilingual Builders — Fluent in both construction documents and compute architectures; equally credible on an active construction site and in a boardroom.
• Founding Contributors — Energized by blank-canvas mandates; build methodology, pipeline, and team simultaneously.
• Risk Spotters — Can walk a site or a one-line diagram and identify what's wrong before it becomes a change order.
• Accountability Anchors — Hold trade partners, OEMs, and themselves to commitments; clients remember them as the person who caught it.
• Ecosystem Connectors — Bring working relationships across OEMs, A&E firms, GCs, and commissioning agents.
• Global Collaborators — Effective across regions, codes, and cultures.

Certain states and localities require employers to post a reasonable estimate of salary range. A reasonable estimate of the current base pay range for this position is $220,000.00 to $270,000.00 annually. Actual salary will be based on a variety of factors, including shift, location, experience, skill set, performance, licensure and certification, and business needs. The range for this position in other geographic locations may differ. Certain positions may also be eligible for variable incentive compensation, such as bonuses or commissions, that is not included in the base pay.

The well-being of WWT employees is essential. When it comes to our benefits package, WWT has one of the best. We offer the following benefits to all full-time employees:

• Health and Wellbeing: Health (Medical & Prescription), Dental, and Vision Care, Onsite Health Centers (MO & IL), Employee Assistance Program, Wellness program
• Financial Benefits: Competitive Pay, Profit Sharing, 401k Plan with Company Matching, Life and Disability Insurance, Flexible Spending Accounts, Tuition Reimbursement
• Paid Time Off: PTO & Holidays, Parental Leave, Medical Leave, Military Leave, Bereavement, Day of Caring
• Additional Perks: Family Planning Benefits, Nursing Mothers Benefits, Voluntary Legal, Voluntary Supplemental Accident/Illness/Hospital, Voluntary ID Theft, Pet Insurance, Employee Discount Program

Note: This is not an all-encompassing list and should not be used as a complete description of the plan’s benefits. For more information, see our US benefits website at wwt.com/us-benefits.

We strive to create an environment where all employees are empowered to succeed based on their skills, performance, and dedication. Our goal is to cultivate a culture of belonging that encourages innovation, collaboration, and respect for all team members, ensuring that WWT remains a great place to work for all!

If you require accessibility accommodation(s) or adjustment during any stage of the hiring process, please let your WWT Recruiter know. The recruiter will work with you to understand your needs and help ensure an accessible experience throughout the interview process.

World Wide Technology is an Equal Opportunity Employer.

If you have any questions or concerns about this posting, please email [e-mail].