Principal Operations Engineer, Controls - Data Center Operations

About the role

We are seeking a Principal Operations Engineer, Controls to serve as the most senior technical authority for the operational building automation, EPMS, and equipment-level control systems across our hyperscale AI data center portfolio. Controls is where mechanical and electrical infrastructure becomes a coordinated system - this role exists to ensure that coordination is operated, maintained, and continuously improved at the standard the AI workloads we host demand. You will operate as the technical arm of senior operations leadership in the field - leading site assessments and operational audits, driving team technical readiness ahead of site activation, reviewing designs and specifications from an operational lens, and feeding operational learnings back into the design and manufacturing organization as we shift toward a productized, repeatable build model. You will set the standard for how our BMS, EPMS, and PLC environments are operated, maintained, and changed across the fleet. The ideal candidate has spent a career programming, commissioning, and operating controls systems on complex central plants and critical environments, and has the platform fluency to walk into any site in the fleet and own the front-end within a day. Formal engineering credentials are valued but not required - practical depth, judgment under pressure, the ability to teach, and the discipline to keep critical infrastructure running through change are what define this role.

Responsibilities

• Serve as the principal operational technical authority for BMS, EPMS, PLC, and equipment-level control systems across the fleet.
• Own all material BMS changes and enhancements across the fleet as part of a coordinated global controls posture; ensure standardization where it matters and discipline around change control everywhere it matters.
• Lead technical and operational site audits across active and pre-activation sites focused on sequences of operation, alarming, trending, integration health, and cybersecurity hygiene; produce operational health assessments with prioritized findings and own the remediation roadmap through closure.
• Own controls operational readiness for new sites coming online - assess team capability, validate sequences, and personally sign off on operational handover from commissioning to steady-state operations.
• Review operational designs for controls scope on new builds and retrofits - including sequences of operation, points lists, and network architecture - and represent the operational point of view in design forums.
• Feed structured operational learnings back into the design and manufacturing organization as we shift toward repeatable, productized data center builds; reinforce patterns that work and drive out patterns that have not held up in operations.
• Diagnose and direct repair of complex control system malfunctions across multiple platforms and protocols; lead PID tuning and trend analysis on systems that are not performing.
• Author and approve high-risk MOPs, EOPs, and AOPs for controls work; serve as the final technical approver for high-consequence controls changes across the fleet.
• Lead root cause analysis for significant controls-driven events; drive corrective actions through to closure and ensure learnings propagate across all sites.
• Partner with QA/QC during construction to provide an operational perspective on integrator programming, point-to-point verification, and controls installation quality.
• Build and deliver technical training to Field Engineers and operational teams; own the technical curriculum for controls content in the campus rotation and training model.
• Mentor Field Engineers and rising operational leaders; act as the senior technical voice in operational reviews, incident reviews, and design reviews.

Requirements

• 10+ years of hands-on experience in building automation, industrial controls, or instrumentation, with at least 5 years as the senior technical voice on a site, campus, or fleet.
• Data center operations ex

Benefits

Additional Information

About Fluidstack We exist to make humanity more free. For most of human history, you farmed or you starved. Technology gave people more time for the things they wanted to do, instead of things they had to do. Powerful AI will be the biggest lever for human choice we've ever built - but only if models are aligned with what humanity actually wants. There are groups building AI who don't share these goals. Whoever deploys frontier compute infrastructure fastest will decide whether AI expands human freedom or shrinks it. We're singularly focused on delivering 10 to 100s of GWs of compute faster than anyone else, rethinking every layer of the stack. We acquire power, design and build data centers, and operate them - with teams spanning hardware and software. Speed and scale are our key differentiators. Come be a part of building civilization-scale infrastructure for AI. We hire people who care deeply about this problem space. If that is you, please apply!

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