Data Center Engineer

Job Title:
Data Center Operations Engineer

Location:
Rancho Cordova, CA- 2 times every week

Job Type: Contract 12+ months

The candidate selected will need to reside locally to the Rancho Cordova office and will need to either go into office or the Data Center in the Sacramento proper two days per week

Travel Requirement: The selected candidate may need to travel once a year to SF, Oakland, or Virginia

Job Description:

We are seeking a highly skilled Data Center Operations Engineer to join our Network Engineering team. The successful candidate will be responsible for maintaining, troubleshooting, and optimizing the physical and logical infrastructure in our co-located data centers and campus locations, ensuring maximum availability, performance, and safety. This is a mission-critical, 24/7 role requiring both hands‑on technical ability and strong coordination skills with vendors and IT teams.

• Infrastructure Maintenance & Operations
• Perform preventative, corrective, and predictive maintenance on data center systems including UPS, generators, PDUs, cooling/HVAC, CRAC/CRAH units, chillers, and backup systems.
• Monitor performance and health of mechanical and electrical systems via various monitoring tools.
• Follow procedures to immediately communicate, report, and escalation data center technical or safety‑related incidents to management.
• Assist or lead hardware installations (racks, servers, network equipment, cabling) and commissioning of new systems.
• Perform decommissions, simple changes (e.g., memory upgrades, cabling, firmware/OS rebuilds), and refreshes of infrastructure cabling, network, storage, and server equipment following standard procedures.
• Validate and test new infrastructure components prior to production integration.
• Ensure grounding, staging, labeling, and cabling align with safety protocols, deployment standards, and planned designs.
• Coordinate third‑party vendors, contractors, and service providers for maintenance, repairs, and deployment of new systems.
• Ensure vendor work complies with safety, quality, and standard operating procedures.
• Identify and propose improvements (automation, monitoring enhancements, energy efficiency, redundancy) to increase reliability and reduce operational costs.
• Participate in audits, compliance reviews, and safety inspections.
• Monitor, analyze, and report metrics to senior leadership.
• Work closely with IT, network, security, and application teams to support infrastructure dependencies.
• Participate in on‑call rotation and respond to off‑hours emergencies.
• Track budget and capital/operational expenditures.

• Create and maintain SOPs, runbooks, configuration records, architecture diagrams, asset inventories, and change logs.
• Generate periodic reports on metrics such as uptime, capacity, and maintenance activities.
• Perform risk assessments, root cause analysis, and corrective actions for failures or incidents.
• Plan and execute change activities ensuring minimal disruption.
• Maintain clear escalation paths and communication during incidents.

• Occasional climbing of ladders.
• Frequent climbing of stairs and/or ramps.
• Prolonged standing.
• Occasional lifting up to 50 lbs / 22.5 kg.
• Occasional push or pull 50–75 lbs / 22.5–34 kg with assistive device.
• Normal visual acuity (near, far, and peripheral with correction) as defined by medical standards.
• Normal color vision for electrical work per applicable criteria.

• This role has a travel requirement of up to 20%, which means occasional travel may be required.

• Bachelor’s degree in electrical/mechanical/computer engineering (Preferred) or equivalent technical career experience.
• 3–7+ years of experience in data center or critical facility operations.
• Strong knowledge of power systems, cooling systems, and electrical distribution.
• Familiarity with DCIM/BMS systems.
• Hands‑on experience with hardware/server/networking installation and troubleshooting.
• Strong problem‑solving and crisis management skills.
• Vendor and project coordination experience.
• Excellent documentation and communication skills.
• Ability to work in shifts / on‑call rotation.
• Desirable certifications: CDCP, Uptime Institute, or equivalent.