<div class="content-intro"><p>Dive in and do the best work of your career at DigitalOcean. Journey alongside a strong community of top talent who are relentless in their drive to build the simplest scalable cloud. If you have a growth mindset, naturally like to think big and bold, and are energized by the fast-paced environment of a true industry disruptor, you’ll find your place here. We value winning together—while learning, having fun, and making a profound difference for the dreamers and builders in the world. </p></div><p>We are looking for a Senior Manager of Physical Infrastructure Engineering who is passionate about the electrical, mechanical, and controls engineering that keeps leading-edge AI/GPU infrastructure running reliably at scale.</p> <p>As Senior Manager of Physical Infrastructure Engineering, you will lead a multidisciplinary engineering team — electrical, mechanical, controls/automation, and infrastructure engineering and construction — responsible for the standards, specifications, and technical decisions that every new build, retrofit, and deployment across DigitalOcean's global footprint must meet. You are the technical authority for data center infrastructure: Design & Deployment executes floor layouts and installs against your team’s standards; you own the standards themselves, the engineering judgment behind them, and the reliability outcomes that follow. This role reports directly to the VP of Data Center Operations & Engineering.</p> <h2><strong>What You’ll Do:</strong></h2> <ul> <li>Lead and grow a multidisciplinary team covering electrical, mechanical, controls/automation, and data center infrastructure engineering and construction.</li> <li>Develop and own engineering standards and specifications for AI/GPU data centers, including liquid cooling (CDU sizing, secondary loop design, leak detection), power distribution, and controls/automation.</li> <li>Serve as the technical authority and final engineering escalation point for infrastructure issues that Site Operations and Design & Deployment cannot resolve at their level.</li> <li>Provide engineering due diligence on new colocation and build-to-suit facilities before signing — power capacity, cooling topology, electrical infrastructure condition, and expansion feasibility.</li> <li>Own vendor and OEM infrastructure engineering relationships (e.g., CDU, UPS, generator, and switchgear manufacturers) — drive root-cause engagements when infrastructure fails, and hold vendors accountable for design defects, not just field service.</li> <li>Lead or sponsor root-cause analysis for infrastructure-driven incidents, and own the resulting engineering corrective actions through to verified completion, not just documentation.</li> <li>Own infrastructure specifications, technical documentation, and change governance — nothing changes at the infrastructure layer without engineering sign-off.</li> <li>Partner with Site Operations, Deployment, Construction, and Design organizations to ensure engineering standards are practical to build and operate, not just technically correct on paper.</li> <li>Track and report on infrastructure reliability metrics across the fleet, and prioritize engineering investment against the highest-risk, highest-recurrence failure modes.</li> <li>Lead compliance review of infrastructure standards against relevant codes and safety requirements (e.g., NFPA 70E, electrical code, two-person energized work rules) in partnership with Legal and EHS.</li> <li>Build and maintain an audit process for reviewing existing sites against current engineering standards, and prioritize remediation of out-of-compliance assets.</li> <li>Manage outsourced engineering talent where required to keep up with workload</li> <li>Develop engineering and construction talent on your team and build a succession plan for key technical authority roles</li> </ul> <p><strong>Travel:</strong> Expect 20–30% travel for new-site due diligence, commissioning support, and vendor/OEM engineering reviews.</p> <p><strong>Key Metrics: </strong></p> <ul> <li>Reduction in infrastructure-driven incidents and repeat failure modes (risk-to-reoccur trending down, not flat).</li> <li>Standardization coverage — percentage of fleet reviewed and brought into compliance with current engineering standards.</li> <li>Time-to-root-cause and time-to-corrective-action on infrastructure engineering escalations.</li> <li>Reliable engineering support of new-site expansion (due diligence turnaround time, defect-free commissioning).</li> <li>Scalability of the engineering organization relative to footprint growth.</li> </ul> <h2><strong>What You’ll Add to DigitalOcean:</strong></h2> <ul> <li>BS in Electrical, Mechanical, Chemical, or related Engineering discipline, or equivalent practical experience.</li> <li>10+ years in mission-critical engineering, including direct experience with data center infrastructure.</li> <li>5+ years leading engineering teams, including hiring, developing, and retaining senior technical talent.</li> <li>5+ years experience managing outsourced engineering teams</li> <li>Deep hands-on experience with liquid cooling systems (chillers, heat exchangers, pumps, CDUs, secondary loop design, leak detection and mitigation), UPS, generators, switchgear, and controls/automation platforms.</li> <li>Experience running or directly supporting root-cause analysis with OEMs on infrastructure component failures, and translating vendor findings into engineering decisions (e.g., acc