Senior Director, Cost Control

5C Group; Springfield (OH); Hybrid; USD 180,000 - 270,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Career growth

Industry leadership

Entrepreneurial culture

Comprehensive rewards

Life at 5C

Job summary

5C Data Centers in the United States is seeking a Senior Director, Cost Control to lead project and portfolio cost management across development, pre-construction, procurement, construction, commissioning and closeout. You will establish cost standards, budgets and forecasts, quantify risk and provide timely cost insight as the VP-level partner to the Senior Director, Project Controls.

Join a team that moves fast on hyperscale data centers while maintaining safety, quality and disciplined cost

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in a relevant discipline or equivalent experience.
• Advanced spreadsheet and enterprise cost-system capability.
• Ability to travel regularly to project and vendor locations.
• 10+ years in construction cost control or related field with leadership experience.
• Experience with data centers or mission-critical facilities preferred.

Responsibilities

• Establish cost policies and reporting cadence within executive controls.
• Map cost structure to WBS and procurement packages.
• Maintain budgets, forecasts, and baseline integrity.
• Lead bottom-up forecasting and assess schedule impacts.
• Validate payments and reconcile cost to progress.
• Model contingency and scenario analyses for cost risk.
• Coordinate with Legal, Finance, Procurement on cost-related decisions.
• Develop cost-system requirements across PMIS and ERP.

Skills

Cost control leadership

Budgeting and forecasting

Data analysis

Cross-functional collaboration

Travel willingness

Education

Bachelor's degree or equivalent

Tools

Excel

ERP systems

Job description

5C DATA CENTERS

Join the Future of Digital Infrastructure

Are you a passionate Senior Director, Cost Control looking to make a meaningful impact? We're building the next generation of digital infrastructure powering hyperscalers, AI innovation, and high-performance computing across North America.

Job Title

Senior Director, Cost Control

Department

DC Construction

Location

USA

Work Arrangement

Hybrid

Travel Requirements

25-50%

Role Summary

5C Data Centers designs, builds, and delivers hyperscale and AI-ready data center campuses across the U.S., partnering with hyperscalers, developers, and colocation providers to bring mission-critical infrastructure online. We move fast without cutting corners on safety, quality, or cost discipline.

The Senior Director, Cost Control leads project and portfolio cost control across development, pre-construction, procurement, construction, commissioning, and closeout. Reporting to the VP, Project Controls + Cost, this role establishes cost standards, maintains budgets and forecasts, quantifies risk, and delivers timely cost insight as the functional counterpart to the Senior Director, Project Controls.

How We Work at 5C

Our core values guide how we collaborate, make decisions, support one another, and serve our customers. We're looking for people who embrace them and help us build something great.

What You Will Do

Cost-Control Strategy, Governance and Functional Integration

• Establish the operating model. Maintain cost policies, Cost Management Plans, coding, data definitions, reporting cadence, approval thresholds and escalation requirements within the Vice President's controls framework.
• Align cost and schedule structures. Map the cost breakdown structure to the Project Controls WBS, procurement packages, contracts, project phases and capital categories using common status dates.
• Enforce data quality. Require timely, complete and traceable support for budgets, commitments, forecasts, changes, contingency, cash flow and final account.

Budget Development and Cost Baseline Management

• Validate budget completeness. Partner with Estimating, Development, Pre-Construction, Engineering and Procurement to confirm scope, market pricing, escalation, owner costs, allowances and risk-based contingency.
• Create controlled budgets. Translate approved estimates and funding into documented control budgets with clear assumptions, exclusions, package ownership and funding sources.
• Protect baseline integrity. Maintain original and current baselines and an audit trail for authorized transfers, supplemental funding, scope reallocations and rebaselines.

Commitments, Actuals, Accruals and Forecast-at-Completion

• Maintain complete cost capture. Control commitments for general contractors, utilities, owner-furnished equipment, professional services, logistics, commissioning and other developer-direct scope.
• Lead bottom-up forecasting. Maintain ETC and EAC based on remaining scope, pending change, productivity, schedule impacts supplied by Project Controls, escalation, claims exposure and closeout.
• Reconcile and explain movement. Align actuals, accruals and commitments with Finance and identify the cause, impact, mitigation, owner and decision date for material forecast changes.

Change Pricing, Commercial Exposure and Claims Prevention

• Own the cost component of change control. Maintain current and potential cost, funding, contingency impact, pricing basis, credits, commercial status and forecast treatment from identification through closeout.
• Independently evaluate proposed cost. Review scope, quantities, rates, markups, general conditions, escalation, duplication, credits, entitlement and downstream commissioning impacts.
• Protect the commercial record. Partner with Project Controls, Construction, Procurement, Commercial and Legal to classify cause, quantify exposure, preserve documentation and reduce claims risk.

Payment Validation and Cost-to-Progress Reconciliation

• Validate payment positions. Review schedules of value, pay applications, stored materials, retention and milestone claims against contract requirements and independently verified progress.
• Reconcile cost to delivery. Compare amounts billed with work installed, procurement, quality, commissioning readiness and remaining cost; recommend approval, correction or withholding.

Cost Risk, Contingency and Scenario Analysis

• Quantify cost risk and opportunity. Translate the integrated risk register into cost ranges, expected exposure, mitigation cost, decision dates and forecast or contingency treatment.
• Administer contingency and allowances. Maintain defensible methodology and complete records for drawdown, transfer, recovery, release, authorization and remaining balance.
• Model material scenarios. Evaluate delay, acceleration, utilities, equipment, site conditions, labor, customer change and commissioning impacts using schedule analysis from Project Controls.

Procurement, Contracting and Buyout Support

• Align packages and awards to budget. Confirm scope boundaries, assumptions, exclusions, alternates, rates, escalation, logistics, commissioning responsibility and funding before award.
• Track buyout and remaining exposure. Monitor variance, unawarded scope, gaps, overlap, long-lead equipment, freight, storage and owner-furnished-equipment interfaces; embed cost-reporting requirements in contracts.

Cash Flow, Capital Planning and Finance Partnership

• Develop time-phased cash flow. Align cash requirements with the integrated schedule, contract terms, equipment milestones, utilities, construction progress, commissioning, retention and closeout.
• Support funding and financial reconciliation. Distinguish timing variance from EAC movement and provide reliable inputs for accruals, capitalization, liquidity, funding and executive decisions while preserving project cost truth.

Cost Reporting and Executive Decision Support

• Own project and portfolio cost reporting. Present budget, commitments, actuals, accruals, change, ETC, EAC, variance, contingency, cash flow, cost risk and required decisions concisely.
• Co-produce integrated controls views. Partner with the Senior Director, Project Controls to reconcile cost, schedule, progress, risk and change using a common data date while preserving source ownership.
• Translate analysis into action. Identify systemic cost pressure and recommend decisions based on capital, delivery, customer, margin and enterprise implications.

Systems, Data and Reporting Automation

• Define cost-system requirements. Establish workflows, coding, permissions, cut-off logic, version control, audit trails and reporting across the PMIS, ERP and business-intelligence environment.
• Improve quality and efficiency. Automate routine consolidation, create exception reporting and maintain historical cost, change, contingency and vendor-performance intelligence.

Team Leadership and Capability Building

• Lead and develop the Cost Control team. Coach the Senior Cost Manager and future resources; define staffing, roles, quality review, performance expectations and succession coverage.
• Build an ownership culture. Set expectations for candor, field engagement, constructive challenge, data integrity and timely escalation rather than administrative reporting.
• Improve enterprise cost literacy. Help project and functional leaders understand and act on budget, commitment, forecast, variance, contingency, cash flow and change information.

Closeout, Benchmarking and Lessons Learned

• Drive final-account closeout. Resolve pending changes, open commitments, credits, retention, allowances, contingency and final forecast with Construction, Commercial, Procurement and Finance.
• Return intelligence to the business. Produce a reconciled final cost record and feed estimate-to-actual, change-cause, schedule-cost and vendor lessons into future estimating, procurement and delivery decisions.

What You Bring

• Bachelor's degree in a relevant discipline or equivalent experience; advanced spreadsheet and enterprise cost-system capability; ability to travel regularly to project and vendor locations.
• 10+ years of progressive construction cost control, cost engineering, quantity surveying, or commercial cost-management experience, including leadership responsibility.
• Demonstrated control of complex, multi-hundred-million-dollar capital projects or portfolios; billion-dollar campus or portfolio experience preferred.
• Experience in data centers, mission-critical facilities, advanced manufacturing, semiconductor, pharmaceutical, energy, utility, or similarly complex infrastructure; direct data center experience strongly preferred.
• Advanced technical cost capability across budgets, commitments, ETC/EAC, variance, change pricing, contingency, cash flow, payment validation, and closeout.
• Working knowledge of major delivery and contract models, with sufficient understanding of design, procurement, field execution, and commissioning to credibly challenge assumptions.
• Strong ability to reconcile cost with schedule, progress, risk, and financial records, and present clear recommendations to executive leadership.

Why Join 5C Data Centers?

At 5C, we believe great people build great companies. You'll build a rewarding career while helping shape the future of digital infrastructure - one of the fastest-growing industries in the world.

Career Growth

Build a rewarding career in one of the world's fastest-growing industries.

Industry Leadership

Help power the infrastructure behind AI and high-performance computing.

Entrepreneurial Culture

Your ideas matter - we empower employees to help shape our future.

Comprehensive Rewards

Competitive pay plus meaningful, lasting impact on the work you do.

Life at 5C

We're more than a workplace - we're a team of builders, innovators, and problem-solvers united by a shared purpose: creating infrastructure that powers the technologies transforming our world. Your voice matters here, and we encourage fresh ideas at every level.

5C Data Centers is an equal opportunity employer.

We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment where everyone can thrive. 5C evaluates qualified applicants without regard to race, color, religion, gender, national origin, age, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, disability status, or any other legally protected characteristic.