Assistant Director, Data Center Facilities

Job Description

Assistant Director, Data Center Facilities in the Office of Information Technology will supervise a team responsible for maintaining several OIT Data Center Facilities at 115 Waterman St, 180 George St, 121 South Main St, Friedman Hall, OSHEAN Data Center in Springfield, MA, and additional facilities as necessary. The primary focus is overseeing receiving, installing, removing, and maintaining equipment and coordinating resources within these Data Centers.

Close collaboration with OIT technical teams is vital to meet needs and timelines. The role also involves aiding in work planning and prioritization to meet deadlines consistently. The incumbent is expected to cultivate continuous improvement, automate repetitive tasks, and provide secondary support across all areas. Team members undergo cross‑training for wiring, racking, monitoring, and managing automated systems. The Assistant Director coordinates a 24‑hour on‑call incident management rotation and serves as the primary responder for escalations.

Remote work is available; the incumbent will be required to work on campus frequently based on operational needs.

• Direct staff in monitoring and documenting the facility’s physical layout and environmental aspects.
• Direct and assist staff with equipment racking and stacking.
• Coordinate with Facilities Management and vendors for electrical, mechanical, HVAC, and other systems.
• Promote continuous improvement, automation, and cross‑training among team members.
• Coordinate team rotation for 24‑hour on‑call incident management and serve as the primary responder for escalations.

• Bachelor’s degree preferred.
• Higher education experience preferred.
• 5–10 years managing datacenter operations and facilities.
• Supervisory experience required.
• Power and cooling management in a high‑performance computing environment essential.
• Experience leading small projects required.

• Strong understanding of HVAC/data center cooling systems (CRAC/CRAH units, in‑row cooling, rear‑door heat exchangers, chilled water systems).
• Knowledge of power distribution (PDUs, RPPs, UPS, dual power feeds, generator systems).
• Experience with environmental monitoring platforms (temperature, humidity, leak detection, airflow).
• Expertise in rack/stack design and layouts (hot aisle/cold aisle, containment strategies, rack elevations).
• Knowledge of Sunbird or other DCIM platforms.
• Knowledge of hot/cold aisle containment engineering.
• Experience managing vendors for electrical/cooling upgrades, cabling projects, data center expansions and colocation services.

• Experience with physical security technologies (badge systems, key/lock systems, NIST audit requirements).
• Familiarity with high‑speed networking standards (10/25/40/100
  
  GbE, QSFP/SFP transceiver standards, fiber types OM3/OM4/OS2).
• Experience facilitating requests and tasks across technical teams.
• Demonstrated customer service, organizational, adaptability, service‑excellence focus, excellent communication skills, and effective leadership of departmental collaboration.

Successful completion of a criminal background check and education verification is required.

Information on the benefits of working at Brown can be found here.

Brown University provides equal opportunity and prohibits discrimination, harassment and retaliation based upon a person’s race, color, religion, sex, age, national or ethnic origin, disability, veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, or any other characteristic protected under applicable law, in the administration of its policies, programs, and activities. The University recognizes and rewards individuals on the basis of qualifications and performance.

The University maintains certain affirmative action programs in compliance with applicable law.