Manager, R&D Data Center

This is an incredible opportunity to be part of a company that has been at the forefront of AI and high-performance data storage innovation for over two decades. DDN Storage is a global market leader renowned for powering many of the world's most demanding AI data centers, in industries ranging from life sciences and healthcare to financial services, autonomous cars, Government, academia, research and manufacturing.

"DDN's A3I solutions are transforming the landscape of AI infrastructure." - IDC

"The real differentiator is DDN. I never hesitate to recommend DDN. DDN is the de facto name for AI Storage in high performance environments" - ~ Marc Hamilton VP, Solutions Architecture & Engineering | NVIDIA

DDN Storage is the global leader in AI and multi-cloud data management at scale. Our cutting-edge storage and data management solutions are designed to accelerate AI workloads, enabling organizations to extract maximum value from their data. With a proven track record of performance, reliability, and scalability, DDN Storage empowers businesses to tackle the most challenging AI and data-intensive workloads with confidence.

Our success is driven by our unwavering commitment to innovation, customer-centricity, and a team of passionate professionals who bring their expertise and dedication to every project. This is a chance to make a significant impact at a company that is shaping the future of AI and data management.

Our commitment to innovation, customer success, and market leadership makes this an exciting and rewarding role for a driven professional looking to make a lasting impact in the world of AI and data storage.

DDN is seeking a Datacenter Operations Manager to lead a team of data center engineers in operating and maintaining a high-performance, stakeholder-focused Datacenter Lab. Reporting to the VP of Engineering, with collaboration across multiple dotted-line stakeholders, this role is responsible for all aspects of datacenter operations, with a primary focus on supporting internal engineering hardware and software development initiatives. The ideal candidate ensures operational excellence, reliability, and efficiency while fostering a proactive, team-oriented environment.

Responsibilities

Lead a team of Data Center Engineers and all related activities in support of QA and R&D operations, including racking and stacking hardware, system setup, and assisting with QA execution.
• Oversee data center operations and its physical infrastructure, driving uptime, operational excellence, and team performance.
• Manage capacity planning and resource allocation for power, cooling, and rack space to support current and future hardware deployments.
• Manage and maintain laboratory budgets, operational metrics, and comprehensive inventory tracking of equipment across all DDN lab environments.
• Manage Atlassian platform administration including oversight of Atlassian administrators and associated platform billing.
• Implement and maintain operational standards and best practices, including incident management, change management, and disaster recovery procedures.
• Monitor and report on operational performance, track KPIs, and present metrics to leadership to ensure continuous improvement and adherence to SLAs.
• Collaborate with internal engineering and cross-functional teams to support development, testing, and deployment of hardware and software while maintaining a high-performance, secure datacenter environment.
• Own resource allocation and project workflow for direct reports and contractor workforce. Drive design and engineering decisions to conclusion including managing internal and external resources, project teams, contractors, and vendors

Required Skills

• 8+ years of experience in a management role required, but 10+ years preferred. 5+ years hands on technical experience relevant to data center activities.
• Must be able to work closely with facilities engineers and possess in-depth knowledge of data center infrastructure, including power distribution, cooling systems, rack and cable management, and environmental monitoring.
• Able to assess infrastructure requirements for hardware deployments, support capacity planning, troubleshoot power or cooling issues, and collaborate with facilities teams to ensure optimal uptime and reliability of the data center environment.
• Experience with multiple of the following is highly desirable: computer networking, hyper-converged platforms (Compute & Storage), File & Block storage systems, Configuring NFS\SMB, iSCSI, FC storage networks, VMware & Hyper-V hypervisor platform, Cloud platforms (AWS\GCP\Azure), DevOps tools & processes, GPU platforms, and AI/ML.
• Experience driving the design & re-factoring of data center applications that are implemented in Python, Perl PHP & SQL is highly desirable.
• Designing & generating reports, data ingestion and making the customer data bundles available for engineering leadership.
• Experience in scaling the data center infrastructure to accommodate a rapidly growing engineering organization.
• Proven experience managing service expansion, datacenter moves, and extension to co-located operations. Hands-on experience with networking topology design & router\switch programming configurations
• Experience in leading, staffing and building a strong, effective and customer-focused global team
• Strong leadership, planning, decision making skills. Excellent communication skills to effectively work with present information to executive management, operations, sales engineering and finance
• A technical degree in a relevant field is preferred; relevant industry certifications are a plus (or equivalent experience).

Salary range for this role: $98,000 - $150,000

This position requires participation in an on-call rotation to provide after-hours support as needed.

DDN has a very strong orientation towards these 4 characteristics and any successful employee will demonstrate these capabilities:

Self-Starter - Takes independent action to identify and solve problems. Seeks out relevant information needed to make decisions. Gets involved with new initiatives.

Success/Achievement Orientation - Delivers quality results consistently. Targets, achieves (or exceeds) measurable results. Sets challenging goals, focuses on critical priorities, and is accountable.

Problem Solving - Recognizes problems and responds with a systematic assessment that identifies and addresses cause of issue. Practical, realistic, and resourceful.

Innovative - Builds and improves key business processes that enhance the effectiveness of DDN. Generates new ideas, challenges the status quo, and solves problems creatively.

DataDirect Networks, Inc. is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, gender, gender identity, gender expression, transgender, sex stereotyping, sexual orientation, national origin, disability, protected Veteran Status, or any other characteristic protected by applicable federal, state, or local law.

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