Data Center Project Engineering Lead - Development

Project Engineering Lead

As the Project Engineering Lead, you will be the dedicated technical individual responsible for the successful engineering execution of a Data Center project in a specific location. You will be based local to the project and serve as the primary point of contact between the Engineering team’s design deliverables and the project's procurement, delivery, and construction teams. You'll ensure the consistent application of Verne's Design & Engineering standards, manage critical technical interfaces, and ensure all engineering documentation supports the project's delivery goals - always within budget and on time. You will report to the Senior Project Manager, with a dotted-line reporting relationship to the Engineering Manager.

What you’ll do:

Your primary responsibility is to ensure that the engineering intent is successfully translated into a constructed, operational facility, working daily to fulfil the Project Execution Plan.

• Apply the Project Engineering Strategy at all phases of the project lifecycle.
• Participate in permitting, procurement and construction to ensure alignment with Verne Engineering standards while ensuring all third parties provide technically compliant proposals that will achieve the project goals.
• Engineering Alignment: Ensure the standard of engineering documentation aligns precisely with the procurement requirements, delivery schedules, and construction methodology of the project.
• Engineering Execution: Manage the project engineering design meetings to ensure engineering excellence, supply chain alignment and buildability.
• Design-to-Procurement Liaison: Communicate all engineering deliverables and technical specifications effectively to the procurement and supply chain teams. Act as the primary technical point of contact for supply chain conversations for the project.
• Effective change management, drive supply chain and contractor design deliverables towards compliant and value engineered solutions, contributing to the design decisions tracker and ensuring sign-off of exceptions and non-conformances.
• Specialist Subcontractor Management:
  • Oversee and manage specialist subcontractors who hold design responsibility (delegated design, contractor design portions).
  • Ensure their work is formally reviewed and signed off against the overall project engineering goals and specifications.
• Discipline Management: Manage a team of discipline managers as a part of the project delivery team, ensuring technical compliance of suppliers against their employers’ requirements.
• Technical Compliance & Non-Conformity:
  • Inspect supplier factories and manufacturing facilities of key suppliers and specialist equipment vendors.
  • Manage and resolve technical non-conformities raised against supplier, manufacturer, and specialist equipment relative to the engineering specifications.
• Construction Assurance:
  • Work with the Construction teams to inspect installations against the Plan of Record.
  • Ensure the constructed facility meets the overall engineering design goals and quality standards.
  • Act as a technical approver for project variations and field changes.
• Pre-Design Technical Input: Direct and coordinate local resources (e.g., surveyors) to ensure accurate site information is presented to the Engineering team for foundational decision-making.
• Project Lifecycle Focus:
  • Procurement Design: Provide technical review of specifications, ensuring market and buildability constraints are incorporated for value engineering and predictable delivery.
  • Commissioning: Support the commissioning team by reviewing scripts to ensure they adequately demonstrate system design objectives; witness critical commissioning activities.
  • Handover: Verify that As-Built documentation and all technical records accurately reflect the final facility for Operations Handover.

How you’ll do it:

You will act as the technical anchor on the project, facilitating technical alignment between design, supply chain, and construction.

• Design Implementation & Review: Review consultant, specialist contractor and supplier technical deliverables for strict adherence to Verne design & engineering standards and the Project Plan of Record.
• Stakeholder Communication: Maintain clear, dedicated lines of communication between the project team (Senior Project Manager), the design team (Engineering Manager), and the supply chain/delivery partners.
• Technical Problem Solving: Serve as the first line of technical defence for field and manufacturing issues, driving timely resolution to maintain project schedule.
• Continuous Improvement: Contribute project-specific lessons learned related to supply chain, buildability, and technical execution back to the Engineering Manager for continuous improvement of Verne’s standards.
• Reporting: Provide weekly and monthly engineering progress reports, covering design status, risks, technical issues, interfaces, and required decisions to the Senior Project Manager, with subsequent monthly technical input and cadence provided to the Engineering Manager. Together with document controller, maintain updated logs of comments, risks, deviations, and design actions.

What you’ll need:

• Bachelors in Engineering or a physical sciences discipline.
• 5+ years experience in a hands-on technical capacity within construction, manufacturing, or a design-build environment.
• 3+ years dedicated experience in a Project Engineering, Project Lead, or Site Technical Manager capacity, specifically accountable for technical compliance and schedule of deliverables.
• Essential: Significant experience in managing specialist subcontractors, delegating technical sign-off authority, and performing factory/site acceptance testing (FAT/SAT).
• Essential: On-site construction experience and comfort wearing PPE.
• Core Technical Competency: Degree-level subject matter expertise in at least one Data Center related technical discipline (e.g., electrical distribution, critical cooling, mission critical controls).
• Execution Focus: Excellence in ensuring technical documentation drives predictable delivery and quality construction.
• Accountability: Comfort and familiarity with directing the technical work of suppliers and specialists, holding them accountable to the engineering specifications.