Senior Data Center Project Controls Lead

Flexential; Atlanta (GA); Hybrid; USD 135,000 - 150,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical, Telehealth, Dental and Vision

401(k)

HSA and FSA

Life and AD&D

Short/Long-term disability

Flex PTO

Leave of Absence

Employee Assistance Program

Wellness Program

Rewards and Recognition

Job summary

Flexential is seeking a seasoned VP of Construction-level professional to lead on-site cost controls, field verification, and multi-project budgeting across a diverse data-center portfolio. You will defend project contingencies, validate change orders, and integrate schedules with earned value reporting for portfolio visibility.

The role requires extensive experience in project controls, cost engineering, and data-center construction, with hybrid work arrangements and market-competitive

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Construction Management, Finance, Civil/Mechanical Engineering, or Accounting.
• 5–8 years of experience in project controls, cost engineering, or construction accounting on heavy industrial or utility-scale commercial projects.
• At least 2–3 years working directly on mission-critical or data center construction projects with a clear understanding of heavy MEP cost profiles.

Responsibilities

• Establish and maintain project controls reporting frameworks, financial tracking standards, and performance metrics to ensure consistent portfolio-level visibility and decision support.
• Maintain active site sub-ledgers and execute daily cost-code accounting using MasterFormat/Uniformat standards, ensuring all field commitments are logged accurately.
• Review, verify, and process monthly progress billings and pay applications from the General Contractor, cross-referencing all billings against physical on-site work-in-place verification.
• Collect, audit, and log conditional and unconditional lien waivers from all sub-tier trades to eliminate financial, legal, and title risks.
• Monitor delivery timelines, tax exemptions, and milestone payments for critical Owner-Furnished Equipment (OFE) once items transition to the field.
• Isolate, track, and bookkeep distinct budgets for large operational repair or retrofit builds to prevent cost blending with standard facility maintenance budgets.
• Command the change order defense process; review incoming Subcontractor Change Orders (PCOs/COs) for strict contractual entitlement.
• Verify contractor material quantities and labor rates against original contract baselines and regional labor indexes.
• Execute rapid, first-principles quantity takeoffs for field variations to negotiate fair value with contractors before work begins.
• Monitor early warning indicators on labor productivity, material waste, and design gaps to flag cost overruns before they impact the ledger.
• Integrates project budgets with active master schedules using critical path methodology to calculate schedule and cost performance indexes (SPI/CPI) via Earned Value Management (EVM).
• Build and update monthly site-level and portfolio-level Work-in-Progress (WIP) forecasts and cash drawdown curves for direct review by the VP of Construction.
• Develop, maintain, and continuously improve project controls reporting standards, dashboards, and portfolio performance metrics utilized by leadership and project stakeholders.
• Provide unfiltered weekly financial health updates, early-warning risk logs, and contingency drawdown status reports to leadership.
• Lead coordination across project teams, contractors, consultants, and internal stakeholders to drive alignment on project controls, forecasting, cost management, and schedule performance.
• Advise the VP of Construction on portfolio-wide contingency liquidity and cash velocity to optimize capital deployment.
• Support long-range portfolio planning activities through multi-project forecasting, capital deployment analysis, and projected financial performance reporting.
• Audit and process final contract closures, retention reconciliations, and sub-tier ledger settlements upon project commissioning.
• Enforce strict compliance with corporate budget boundaries, contractual frameworks, and Guaranteed Maximum Price (GMP) structures.
• Identify opportunities to improve project controls processes, reporting methodologies, financial controls, and compliance practices across the portfolio.
• Support corporate financial and compliance audits by providing clean, unassailable financial records of site expenditures, signed waivers, and progress history.

Skills

Project controls

Cost accounting

Field verification

Cost forecasting

Data center construction

Education

Bachelor’s degree in CM/Finance/Engineering/Accounting

Tools

PMIS tools

Excel/Spreadsheets

CPM scheduling

Job description

Flexential is seeking a seasoned VP of Construction-level professional to lead on-site cost controls, field verification, and multi-project budgeting across a diverse data-center portfolio. You will defend project contingencies, validate change orders, and integrate schedules with earned value reporting for portfolio visibility.

The role requires extensive experience in project controls, cost engineering, and data-center construction, with hybrid work arrangements and market-competitive