Data Center Design Manager

Job Family Group: Research & Technology Group Job Description: Key responsibilities 1. Pre-sales technical leadership and customer engagement • Lead technical discovery with customers to define business objectives, IT load profiles, availability targets, deployment phasing, site constraints, operating philosophy, sustainability goals, budget parameters, and schedule expectations. • Convert customer requirements into a clear basis of design, design criteria, scope matrix, assumptions, exclusions, interfaces, and acceptance requirements. • Develop concept and reference architectures for greenfield, brownfield, retrofit, high-density, and liquid-cooled data center deployments. • Present solution concepts, trade-offs, performance, risks, and value propositions to customer technical teams, consultants, procurement stakeholders, and executive decision-makers. • Coordinate technical responses for RFIs, RFPs, tenders, design workshops, value engineering reviews, and customer clarification meetings. 2. Integrated mechanical and electrical design • Own the integrated design intent across mechanical and electrical disciplines, ensuring system architecture, equipment selection, controls, interfaces, and redundancy strategy work as one coordinated solution. • Mechanical scope includes cooling architecture, chilled-water or condenser-water systems, liquid cooling systems, CDUs, heat rejection, pumps, piping, hydraulic design, water treatment, ventilation, containment, controls, and heat-reuse interfaces where applicable. • Electrical scope includes utility and medium-voltage interfaces, transformers, switchgear, UPS, generators, PDUs, busway, grounding, protection philosophy, power distribution, controls, metering, and integration with critical mechanical loads. • Review load calculations, capacity models, single-line diagrams, schematics, equipment schedules, layouts, sequences of operation, control narratives, technical specifications, and bills of quantities. • Ensure designs address reliability, maintainability, constructability, modularity, future expansion, energy and water efficiency, safe operation, and lifecycle cost. 3. Solution costing, quotation and commercial support • Translate the approved technical concept into an executable scope of supply and services for estimating and quotation. • Work with sales, finance, procurement, supply chain, legal, and project teams to develop cost inputs, vendor budgets, engineering hours, schedule assumptions, contingencies, and commercial qualifications. • Validate that quotations align with the technical solution, customer deliverables, performance commitments, warranty position, interfaces, exclusions, and project risk profile. • Lead technical bid evaluations and value engineering without compromising safety, resilience, performance, compliance, or customer outcomes. • Support contract and change-order reviews by clarifying technical obligations, acceptance criteria, dependencies, and impact on cost and schedule. 4. System integrator and vendor integration • Act as the primary technical coordinator with system integrators, design firms, OEMs, equipment vendors, contractors, controls providers, and commissioning agents. • Establish a clear responsibility and interface matrix covering design ownership, equipment boundaries, data exchange, controls, power, piping, communications, testing, documentation, and warranty. • Lead vendor design reviews, technical submittal reviews, deviation management, interface resolution, and integration workshops. • Assess vendor capability, solution maturity, technical compliance, manufacturability, delivery risk, service coverage, and commissioning readiness. • Drive standardization of preferred architectures, specifications, design modules, approved components, and repeatable integration methods. 5. Project execution and design governance • Maintain technical ownership from order award through detailed engineering, procurement, construction support, testing, and final handover. • Establish and manage the design programme, deliverables register, design review gates, decision log, risk register, action tracker, and technical change-control process. • Coordinate multidisciplinary design reviews and resolve clashes, gaps, constructability issues, and late changes before they affect site execution. • Provide technical support during procurement, factory testing, installation, site queries, non-conformance resolution, and system start-up. • Ensure accurate and timely drawings, specifications, calculations, submittals, method statements, inspection and test plans, operating procedures, and as-built documentation. 6. Testing, commissioning and handover • Define the commissioning strategy and acceptance framework from the design stage, including factory acceptance, site acceptance, pre-functional checks, functional performance testing, integrated systems testing, and reliability demonstrations. • Coordinate vendors and contractors to develop commiss