Design Director, Existing Facilities & Colocation

Digital Realty

23d

About The Position

The Director, Design Engineering – Existing Facilities & Colocation serves as the senior technical authority responsible for design strategy, execution, and governance for all retrofit, expansion, and customer-driven deployments across the America’s region. This role operates in highly constrained, live data-center environments, where available power, cooling, footprint, and phasing must be translated into maximum deployable IT capacity while protecting uptime, safety, and long-term asset value. This leader sits at the intersection of Engineering, Operations, Sales Engineering, Construction, and Portfolio Management, ensuring commercial commitments are supported by technically sound, buildable, and operationally viable designs. The role requires strong technical judgment, the ability to make and defend high-impact tradeoffs, and a deep understanding of how to deliver capacity in complex, operating facilities.

Requirements

10+ years of mission-critical engineering or delivery experience, with significant exposure to operating data centers, retrofits, expansions, or colocation environments.
Strong technical foundation in power, cooling, or integrated MEP systems, including how they perform and degrade in existing buildings.
Demonstrated experience delivering capacity in live-site environments with complex phasing, outage, and constructability constraints.
Proven ability to manage consultants, contractors, commissioning agents, utilities, and equipment vendors across fast-paced, multi-project portfolios.
Experience working directly with Sales Engineering, Operations, and customers to assess feasibility, support commitments, and resolve delivery risk.
Strong understanding of owner-operator development processes including gating, change control, scope management, and capital delivery.
Ability to clearly explain, defend, and negotiate complex technical decisions with senior stakeholders and customers.
Highly organized, process-driven, and comfortable operating in high-pressure, schedule-driven environments.
Bachelor’s degree in Engineering or Architecture required; professional registration (PE) strongly preferred.

Responsibilities

Provide strategic leadership, mentorship, and performance management for design managers supporting retrofit, expansion, and colocation programs across the region, balancing resources against commercial and delivery priorities.
Serve as the senior technical authority for live-site and retrofit design, translating constraints in power, cooling, footprint, phasing, and operations into maximum deployable IT capacity for colocation customers.
Lead technical coordination across internal teams (Colocation, Portfolio Management, Operations, Construction, and Global Design) and external partners including A/E firms, contractors, utilities, commissioning agents, vendors, and end-user customers.
Ensure compliance with Global and Regional Design Engineering Guidelines while defining how standards are applied or adapted in constrained existing-facility environments.
Oversee consultant engagement including RFPs, bid leveling, firm selection, scope demarcation, and design schedules aligned to customer and capital delivery milestones.
Review and approve key retrofit and colocation design deliverables including Basis of Design, drawings, technical studies, phasing plans, outage strategies, commissioning plans, and OFCI equipment packages.
Provide technical leadership through construction, energization, and commissioning, including live-site coordination, RFI resolution, outage planning, and Level 4/5 testing support.
Manage technical inputs to project reporting, budgets, change control, capacity forecasting, and risk management for active retrofit and customer deployment programs.
Support and lead design gating milestones , ensuring alignment between commercial commitments, capital planning, and buildable technical solutions.
Drive continuous improvement through lessons learned, standards evolution, repeatable retrofit solutions, and adoption of tools and methods that increase speed, MW yield, and reliability in existing facilities.