Data Center Manager

Data Center Manager

Ottawa

Contract role

Position Summary

We are seeking an experienced Data Center Manager to oversee daily data center operations, IT infrastructure, facilities, maintenance, and technical teams. The ideal candidate will have a strong infrastructure background and experience managing servers, networking, storage, virtualization, power, cooling, security, and vendor relationships.

Key Responsibilities

• Manage daily data center operations, monitoring, maintenance, capacity planning, and incident response.
• Oversee servers, storage, networking, virtualization, cabling, racks, power, cooling, and environmental systems.
• Ensure high availability, performance, security, and reliability of critical infrastructure.
• Lead infrastructure upgrades, installations, migrations, expansions, and decommissioning projects.
• Manage incidents, outages, root-cause analysis, change requests, disaster recovery, and business continuity processes.
• Coordinate internal teams, contractors, suppliers, and third-party vendors.
• Maintain operational procedures, asset inventories, network diagrams, maintenance records, and compliance documentation.
• Manage budgets, service-level agreements, capacity planning, risk assessments, and performance reporting.
• Lead, coach, schedule, and develop data center and infrastructure staff.
• Ensure compliance with company policies, security standards, health and safety requirements, and industry best practices.
• Participate in an on-call or after-hours support rotation when required.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree or diploma in Information Technology, Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field.
• 5+ years of experience in data center operations, IT infrastructure, systems administration, or a related environment.
• 2+ years of experience managing technical teams, infrastructure projects, or data center operations.
• Strong knowledge of enterprise servers, networking, storage, virtualization, backup, monitoring, and disaster recovery.
• Experience with data center power, cooling, environmental monitoring, physical security, and structured cabling.
• Proven experience managing vendors, contractors, budgets, maintenance schedules, and service-level agreements.
• Strong understanding of incident, change, problem, and configuration management.
• Excellent leadership, communication, troubleshooting, organizational, and project management skills.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with cloud or hybrid infrastructure environments.
• Knowledge of VMware, Microsoft Azure, AWS, Cisco, Windows Server, Linux, or enterprise storage platforms.
• Certifications such as ITIL, CDCP, CDCS, PMP, CCNA, or CompTIA.
• Familiarity with data center standards, security frameworks, and compliance requirements.