Data Center Specialist III

Location: Newport Beach, CA Salary: $40.00 USD Hourly - $45.00 USD Hourly Description: Our client is currently seeking a Data Center Specialist III

Data Center Specialist III

Location: Fully Onsite - Newport Beach, CA (Willingness to travel to Omaha, NE data center as needed)

Duration: 12+ Months (Contract to extend/hire)

About the job

We are investing in bright and agile talent to contribute to our mission of innovating our business and creating a superior customer experience. We are seeking a hands-on Data Center Specialist with deep, end-to-end expertise across all aspects of physical data center operations to join our Infrastructure team.

This role is responsible for the day-to-day operations, maintenance, and physical infrastructure of our primary data center in Newport Beach, CA, and our colocation disaster recovery site in Omaha, NE. The ideal candidate is a well-rounded data center professional who understands electrical and power distribution, cooling, cabling, DCIM, and facility management, and who is equally comfortable performing the physical work of racking, cabling, and maintaining critical infrastructure. This position ensures our data center environments remain secure, available, reliable, and well-documented.

Responsibilities

• Physical Operations: Perform hands-on physical data center work, including rack-and-stack, equipment installation, moves, adds, changes, and end-of-life decommissioning and clean-up.
• Power Infrastructure: Manage and maintain power infrastructure, including PDUs, rack power distribution, whip builds, circuit capacity, redundancy (A/B feeds), and remote power control configuration and monitoring.
• Facilities Coordination: Coordinate with facilities and electrical/mechanical vendors on UPS, ATS, generators, power distribution, and electrical maintenance to ensure resilient and code-compliant power delivery.
• Environmental Controls: Manage cooling and environmental systems in partnership with facilities, monitoring temperature, humidity, airflow, hot/cold aisle containment, and remediating environmental issues.
• Cabling: Design, install, label, and maintain structured cabling (copper and fiber), including cable management, ladder rack, overhead pathways, patch schedules, and rack elevations.
• DCIM Management: Own the DCIM platform, maintaining accurate asset inventory, rack elevations, capacity tracking, power/cooling utilization, connectivity mapping, and space planning.
• Colocation Management: Lead colocation (colo) management activities, including colo selection and evaluation, contract and SLA coordination, space/power/cooling requirements, remote-hands coordination, and vendor relationship management.
• Capacity Planning: Plan and manage data center capacity for space, power, and cooling, and forecast growth to support new equipment deployments and infrastructure projects.
• Standards & Compliance: Define, communicate, and enforce data center standards, labeling conventions, safety practices, and physical security and compliance requirements.
• Deployments & Migrations: Coordinate and execute infrastructure deployments and migrations (e.g., VMware-to-Nutanix, hardware refreshes) with Systems, Network, Storage, Facilities, Security, and vendor teams.
• Escalation & Support: Provide escalation support for complex power, cooling, cabling, environmental, and physical hardware issues.
• Installation Standards: Ensure proper physical installation practices, including seismic/earthquake bracing (Unistrut), grounding, weight distribution, and adherence to manufacturer and site standards.
• Documentation: Develop and maintain accurate documentation, including rack diagrams, cable schedules, IP/port documentation, runbooks, standard operating procedures, and operational records.
• System Administration: Support server and hardware operations across VMware, Nutanix, Windows, and Linux platforms, including basic system administration and health checks.
• Disaster Recovery: Participate in disaster recovery activities and resiliency testing at the Omaha DR site, including power-failover validation and coordination with network and platform teams.
• On-Call Support: Participate in an on-call rotation and provide after-hours and 24/7 support for critical data center operations as required.

Minimum Qualifications and Experience

• Associate or Bachelor's degree in Information Technology, Computer Science, or a related field, or equivalent hands-on data center experience.
• 8+ years of hands-on data center operations experience across multiple sites, including primary and colocation/DR environments.
• Strong, demonstrable expertise across all physical data center domains: electrical/power distribution, PDUs, cooling/environmental systems, structured cabling, and facility management.
• Ability to perform physical work, including lifting, racking, and installing equipment, and working in data center environments.
• Experience with colocation facilities, including colo selection/evaluation, space/power/cooling planning, and remote-hands coordination.
• Familiarity with Windows, Linux and Hypervisor environments.
• Hands-on experience with DCIM tools for asset, capacity, power, and connectivity management.
• Practical knowledge of power infrastructure, including UPS, ATS, generators, redundant (A/B) power feeds, circuit sizing, and rack power capacity.
• Proficiency with structured cabling (copper and fiber), cable management, labeling standards, and rack elevation design.
• Working knowledge of server, storage, and network hardware, with familiarity across VMware, Nutanix, Windows, and Linux platforms.
• Excellent problem-solving skills and the ability to work under pressure during critical events.
• Strong organizational and documentation skills, with the ability to maintain accurate physical infrastructure records.
• Ability to work independently and collaborate effectively with facilities, vendors, and global infrastructure teams.
• Willingness and ability to travel to the Omaha, NE data center as needed.

Preferred Qualifications

• Industry certifications such as DCCA, DCCS, CDCP/CDCS/CDCE (Data Center Certified Professional/Specialist/Expert), or BICSI cabling certifications.
• Experience with data center monitoring tools (Grafana, SolarWinds, and vendor call-home solutions) and environmental/power monitoring platforms.
• Experience supporting data center relocations, buildouts, or colocation migrations.
• Familiarity with physical security systems, fire suppression, and data center compliance standards.

Core Competencies

• End-to-end physical data center expertise (power, cooling, cabling, DCIM)
• Colocation and facility management
• Hands-on installation and physical infrastructure work
• Capacity planning and documentation discipline
• Cross-functional coordination with facilities and vendors
• Reliability, safety, and operational excellence

Medical, dental, and vision insurance are available to qualified candidates who meet eligibility requirements.
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