DC Site Operations Lead

Role: DC Site Operations Lead
Location: Santa clara, CA (Onsite)
Pay rate: $50 - 55/hr

Let’s create our future together at The AES Group!

About The AES Group
The AES Group is a premier technology and engineering consulting company that has been bringing businesses and talent together for over 20 years to deliver innovative solutions that have the greatest positive impact on society.
AES has helped over 40 business enterprises, including Fortune 500 companies, engage their customers, empower their employees, and transform their business operations with the power of cloud, data, AI, engineering, and other emerging technologies.

About the Role:

We are looking for a results-driven Data Center Site Operations Lead with 7+ years of experience in enterprise data centers, hyperscale infrastructure, or cloud computing environments.
This role focuses on ensuring infrastructure readiness, operational governance, capacity visibility, compliance, and seamless production transitions.
The ideal candidate combines strong technical knowledge of data center infrastructure with proven experience managing operational processes, coordinating stakeholders, identifying risks, and improving operational efficiency.                                                                                                         
Key Responsibilities:

1. Data Center Infrastructure Operations & Capacity Management

• Oversee operational visibility across power, cooling, rack utilization, infrastructure capacity, monitoring, and space management.
• Establish and track operational KPIs measuring infrastructure health, capacity utilization, readiness, and performance.
• Maintain accurate infrastructure records, capacity allocations, and asset lifecycle information using DCIM and asset management platforms.
• Identify operational inefficiencies and implement improvements to enhance infrastructure reliability.

2. Operational Readiness & Production Handoffs

• Lead operational acceptance, infrastructure readiness assessments, and production handoffs for newly deployed data center environments.
• Collaborate with engineering, facilities, and operations teams to validate infrastructure readiness criteria.
• Ensure monitoring systems, operating procedures, documentation, ownership assignments, and capacity controls are established before production deployment.
• Identify readiness gaps, mitigate operational risks, and coordinate remediation activities through closure.

3. Cross-Functional Leadership & Stakeholder Management

• Serve as a key liaison across infrastructure engineering, facilities, reliability, platform, and operations teams.
• Coordinate operational escalations, technical dependencies, issue resolution, and infrastructure readiness activities.
• Communicate infrastructure health, operational risks, capacity constraints, and readiness updates to technical stakeholders and leadership.
• Influence cross-functional decisions and drive outcomes without direct reporting authority.

4. Operational Governance, Compliance & Process Improvement

• Develop and maintain Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs), governance frameworks, operational controls, and reporting standards.
• Support compliance initiatives, infrastructure audits, and operational readiness assessments.
• Ensure accuracy and consistency across DCIM systems, asset inventories, and operational reporting platforms.
• Establish repeatable operational processes supporting scalable, reliable infrastructure management.

5. Continuous Improvement & Operational Excellence

• Identify recurring infrastructure challenges and implement sustainable corrective actions.
• Improve monitoring effectiveness, operational reporting, governance controls, and production transition processes.
• Standardize operational best practices across multiple data center environments.

Required Qualifications:

Experience & Education

• Bachelor's degree in Electrical, Mechanical, Computer, or Data Center Engineering, a related technical discipline, or equivalent practical experience.
• 7+ years of experience supporting enterprise data centers, hyperscale environments, cloud infrastructure, or high-density compute operations.

Technical Expertise

• Strong understanding of data center power, cooling, capacity planning, infrastructure monitoring, and rack/space management.
• Hands-on experience with Data Center Infrastructure Management (DCIM) platforms and infrastructure asset management systems.
• Experience managing operational readiness, production handoffs, infrastructure acceptance, and governance processes.
• Proven ability to develop operational KPIs, performance metrics, and infrastructure reporting frameworks.
• Knowledge of compliance requirements, audit readiness, and data center operational procedures.

Leadership & Collaboration

• Experience coordinating across engineering, facilities, SRE, infrastructure, and operations teams.
• Strong stakeholder management, analytical problem-solving, and risk mitigation capabilities.
• Excellent communication skills with the ability to translate technical challenges into actionable business insights.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience supporting hyperscale data centers, AI infrastructure, cloud platforms, or large-scale computing environments.
• Experience designing scalable operational governance frameworks.
• Familiarity with data center compliance and audit standards.
• Proven ability to drive operational improvements in rapidly expanding infrastructure organizations.
• Strong systems-thinking approach and ability to influence decisions across multiple teams.