Data Center Operations Engineer

Our client, a leading insurance provider and dental network, is 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 hand‑on technical ability and strong coordination skills with vendors and IT teams.

This is a Hybrid Role in Rancho Cordova, CA.

12 Months

• Bachelors 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 & 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

CDCP, Uptime Institute, or equivalent

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 elevate data center technical or safety related incidents to management.

Assist or lead hardware installations (racks, servers, network equipment, cabling) and commissioning of new systems. Directly 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, ensuring grounding, staging, labeling, and cabling to align with all safety protocols, deployment standards, and planned designs and specifications.

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 their 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.

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 50lbs / 22.5kg. Occasional push or pull 50‑75 lbs / 22.5‑34kg. with assistive device. Normal visual acuity (near, far and peripheral with correction), defined via standard medical terms and applicable criteria. Normal color vision for electrical work, defined via standard medical terms and applicable criteria.

This role has a travel requirement of up to 20%, which means you may be required to travel, from time to time, as part of this role.