Our client, an energy and infrastructure operator based in Iowa, is seeking a Head of AI Data Center Design & Delivery for an initial 12 month contract with high likelihood of extension. This individual will work remotely, but must be able to travel occasionally to the company's Iowa operations. The company has hundreds of megawatts of active development underway for purpose-built, AI-ready sites and is engaging hyperscaler and neocloud customers seeking AI/HPC hosting capacity.
The Head of AI Data Center Design & Delivery will serve as the technical authority responsible for defining, owning, and defending the basis of design for AI/HPC data center facilities. This person will work closely with the Site, Energy & Infrastructure team, which leads land, power, permitting, and interconnection, and will take projects from powered site through full AI/HPC facility design, delivery, commissioning, and Ready-for-Service.
The ideal candidate has personally owned the technical design of recognizable, ground-up AI/HPC data centers and can credibly sit across from hyperscaler or neocloud engineering teams to explain and defend design decisions involving power, cooling, redundancy, commissioning, and GPU-density requirements.
Responsibilities include developing and maintaining the basis of design for AI/HPC facilities; defining electrical topology, cooling architecture, redundancy tier, and commissioning requirements; leading high-density liquid-cooled design and delivery for GPU workloads; establishing PMO, project controls, and commissioning discipline; supporting technical diligence with prospective hyperscaler and neocloud customers; and ensuring customer-ready AI hosting capacity is delivered to tenant requirements and SLA commitments.
Required Skills:
- Proven experience personally owning the technical design and basis of design for AI/HPC or high-density mission-critical data centers.
- Experience delivering recognizable, verifiable AI/HPC data centers to Ready-for-Service, ideally for or alongside a hyperscaler, major neocloud, GPU cloud provider, or large-scale compute customer.
- Deep hands-on experience with high-density, liquid-cooled GPU environments, including direct-to-chip cooling, rear-door heat exchangers, CDUs, secondary-loop systems, and related cooling architecture.
- Ability to define and defend electrical topology, cooling design, redundancy tier, commissioning levels, rack-density assumptions, and customer-facing technical requirements.
- Experience participating directly in technical diligence, design reviews, and engineering discussions with sophisticated customer engineering teams.
- Experience delivering customer-facing hosting capacity under a tenant SLA in a host/operator, colocation, wholesale, or similar environment.
- Experience leading large-scale capital delivery efforts, ideally $100M+ in CapEx.
- Strong understanding of data center project controls, commissioning, design coordination, operational readiness, vendor management, and customer acceptance.
- Working knowledge of U.S. utility interconnection, AHJ engagement, permitting, and the coordination required between powered-site development and facility delivery.
- Ability to operate effectively in a lean, fast-moving organization with high ownership and limited layers of management.
Preferred Skills:
- Active PE license or strong electrical/mechanical engineering foundation with continued hands-on technical involvement.
- Experience with 100+ kW rack-density environments, direct-to-chip liquid cooling, and AI/HPC infrastructure design.
- Background with hyperscalers, neocloud providers, GPU cloud operators, colocation/wholesale data center developers, or AI-focused hosting operators.
- Experience supporting owner/operator-side delivery rather than solely executing a design created by another engineering team or general contractor.
- Experience with AI factories, Bitcoin mining operators transitioning into AI/HPC hosting, or other energy-intensive data center infrastructure environments.
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