Data Center Standards Architect
Remote • San Jose Office (Zanker) • FullTime
Posted 2mo ago
Job Location
San Jose Office (Zanker)
Remote Work Policy
Fully remote
Employment Type
FullTime
Categories
Applied AI Engineer
About the job
Lambda, a leader in AI cloud infrastructure, is seeking a Data Center Standards Architect to join their team. This principal-level role is responsible for designing the standards, systems, tools, and processes that enable Lambda to scale its data center infrastructure. The ideal candidate will have experience leading engineering teams or large technical programs and will focus on shaping how a fast-growing infrastructure organization operates. This is an opportunity to build the world's best AI cloud infrastructure.
Responsibilities
- Define and own data center engineering standards for high-density AI and GPU infrastructure.
- Create repeatable reference architectures, design patterns, and technical specifications to improve data center build consistency.
- Develop an engineering operating system for data center scale, including standards libraries, design review processes, and quality gates.
- Translate lessons learned from deployments into reusable mechanisms for safer, faster, and more predictable future deployments.
- Establish technical standards for power distribution, cooling, rack integration, cabling, networking, security, and operational readiness.
- Lead cross-functional architecture reviews for new data center designs and infrastructure programs.
- Identify organizational bottlenecks and design systems and workflows to improve accountability and execution at scale.
- Build governance mechanisms for standards adoption, including exception management and continuous improvement.
- Act as a technical advisor to leadership on data center strategy, design tradeoffs, and scalability.
- Mentor engineers and technical leaders to raise the bar for systems thinking and design rigor.
Requirements
- Operated as a staff, principal, or director-level engineering leader in data center, infrastructure, facilities, or cloud engineering.
- Experience designing or scaling standards, processes, tools, or governance systems in a complex engineering organization.
- Strong systems-thinking mindset, capable of turning ambiguous problems into scalable mechanisms.
- Deep familiarity with data center infrastructure, including power, cooling, rack layouts, networking, cabling, and lifecycle management.
- Ability to balance engineering excellence with delivery velocity, cost, risk, reliability, and operational simplicity.
- Comfortable influencing without direct authority across various stakeholders.
- Clear communication skills through written standards, technical narratives, and diagrams.
- Track record of raising the technical bar for teams through improved processes and decision-making frameworks.
- Energized by building systems that enable engineers and operators to move faster and make better decisions.
- Deep care for reliability, maintainability, repeatability, and operational excellence in mission-critical environments.