Technical Program Manager - Data Center Delivery

Job description

Lambda, The Superintelligence Cloud, is a leader in AI cloud infrastructure serving tens of thousands of customers. Our customers range from AI researchers to enterprises and hyperscalers. Lambda's mission is to make compute as ubiquitous as electricity and give everyone the power of superintelligence. One person, one GPU. If you'd like to build the world's best AI cloud, join us. *Note: This position requires presence in our San Francisco or San Jose office location 4 days per week; Lambda’s designated work from home day is currently Tuesday. Role Overview We are seeking a Technical Program Manager to own program management for the physical plant infrastructure delivery of new data center builds. This role begins after the Real Estate and Site Selection team has selected or acquired a site and continues through construction completion, commissioning coordination, operational readiness, and handoff to the Network Deployment team. This role manages the integrated schedule and cross-functional coordination across engineering, construction management, permitting, utilities, procurement, commissioning, operations readiness, security, finance, and external partners. The scope includes site work, utilities, shell, mechanical systems, electrical systems, controls, white space physical readiness, inspections, commissioning status, and turnover readiness. This role does not own engineering design authority, construction means and methods, GC management authority, real estate acquisition, or steady-state operations. Engineering owns technical criteria and design. Construction Management owns the physical build oversight through the GC. Commissioning owns independent test and acceptance. Operations owns the site after turnover. This TPM owns the integrated delivery plan, schedule visibility, dependency tracking, issue escalation, and cross-functional alignment required to deliver the site. What You’ll Do - Own the integrated program schedule for a new data center build from post-site-selection handoff through handoff to Network Deployment. - Coordinate the sequence from rack requirements to engineering criteria, engineering design, engineering plan set, permit submission, permit approval, construction, commissioning, and turnover readiness. - Track milestones across site readiness, permitting, utility delivery, design completion, plan set completion, procurement dependencies, site work, shell, MEP systems, controls, white space physical readiness, inspections, commissioning, and operational handoff. - Coordinate with Real Estate and Site Selection after site selection to confirm assumptions, constraints, utility commitments, fiber availability, land conditions, permit path, and delivery risks. - Partner with Engineering to ensure rack, power, cooling, controls, resiliency, security, and operational requirements are reflected in the design package and plan set. - Partner with Construction Management to track construction milestones, GC schedule, material availability, field progress, inspection status, and construction risks. - Partner with Commissioning to track test plans, commissioning schedule, issue resolution, acceptance criteria, and readiness for operations turnover. - Partner with Operations to track staffing readiness, procedures, documentation, training, monitoring readiness, access readiness, and turnover requirements. - Maintain site-level risk registers, dependency logs, decision trackers, milestone trackers, schedule variance reports, and executive status updates. - Identify risks that could affect delivery dates, including permitting delays, utility delays, design changes, procurement constraints, construction sequencing issues, commissioning failures, inspection delays, or unresolved decisions. - Escalate issues with specific facts, including current status, baseline date, forecast date, variance to plan, impact, owner, mitigation options, and required decision date. - Ensure the physical plant is ready for Network Deployment, including white space readiness, power availability, cooling readiness, controls readiness, cable pathways, security access, operational access, and turnover documentation. - Support schedule recovery planning when site, permit, utility, design, procurement, construction, commissioning, or operations readiness milestones slip. Scope of Ownership This role owns: - Site-level infrastructure delivery program management - Integrated schedule from site selection handoff to handoff to Network Deployment - Cross-functional coordination across Engineering, CM, Commissioning, Operations, Utilities, Procurement, Security, Finance, and external partners - Milestone tracking for design, permits, construction, commissioning, and turnover readiness - Risk, issue, dependency, and decision tracking - Schedule variance reporting - Escalation preparation - Readiness tracking for Network Deployment handoff This role partners with, but does not independently own: - Site selection or real estate acquisition - Engineering criteria or design authority - Plan set technical approval - Construction means and methods - Direct GC management - Commissioning authority - Procurement commercial strategy - Network deployment execution - Services deployment execution - Steady-state data center operations You - 10+ years of experience in data center delivery, infrastructure program management, construction program management, technical program management, mission-critical facilities, industrial construction, or large capital project delivery. - Experience managing delivery programs for ground-up data centers, mission-critical facilities, cloud infrastructure, industrial facilities, semiconductor facilities, energy infrastructure, or large technical campuses. - Strong understanding of the data center delivery lifecycle, including site handoff, permitting, engineering design, plan sets, utilities, procurement, construction, MEP systems, controls, commissioning, inspections, and operations turnover. - Experience coordinating across engineering, construction management, commissioning, operations, utilities, procurement, permitting, security, finance, and external partners. - Ability to manage integrated schedules, critical path risks, dependency logs, decision trackers, change control, and executive reporting. - Ability to understand technical tradeoffs well enough to identify risks, ask precise questions, and escalate effectively without owning technical design authority. - Strong written and verbal communication skills. - Ability to operate independently in fast-moving, capital-intensive environments. Nice to Have - Experience delivering hyperscale data centers, AI infrastructure facilities, GPU data centers, cloud regions, or high-density compute facilities. - Experience with utility interconnection, substation readiness, medium-voltage or high-voltage power delivery, MEP systems, controls, and commissioning. - Experience working with general contractors, construction managers, design firms, commissioning agents, utilities, and local permitting authorities. - Experience at a hyperscale cloud provider, colocation provider, AI infrastructure company, or large infrastructure operator. - PMP, construction management, engineering, project controls, or technical infrastructure certification preferred. Success Measures - The assigned site reaches infrastructure turnover on the committed timeline. - Engineering, construction, commissioning, operations, procurement, and utility milestones are visible and accurately tracked. - Critical path risks are identified early and escalated with clear owner, impact, and mitigation options. - The site is handed off to Network Deployment with defined readiness criteria completed. - Schedule variance, risk exposure, and decision requirements are clearly communicated to leadership. - No major handoff gaps exist between physical plant delivery, networking, services, and operations. Salary Range Information The annual salary range for this position has been set based on market data and other factors. However, a salary higher or lower than this range may be appropriate for a candidate whose qualifications differ meaningfully from those listed in the job description. About Lambda - Founded in 2012, with 500+ employees, and growing fast - Our investors notably include TWG Global, US Innovative Technology Fund (USIT), Andra Capital, SGW, Andrej Karpathy, ARK Invest, Fincadia Advisors, G Squared, In-Q-Tel (IQT), KHK & Partners, NVIDIA, Pegatron, Supermicro, Wistron, Wiwynn, Gradient Ventures, Mercato Partners, SVB, 1517, and Crescent Cove - We have research papers accepted at top machine learning and graphics conferences, including NeurIPS, ICCV, SIGGRAPH, and TOG - Our values are publicly available: https://lambda.ai/careers - We offer generous cash & equity compensation - Health, dental, and vision coverage for you and your dependents - Wellness and commuter stipends for select roles - 401k Plan with 2% company match (USA employees) - Flexible paid time off plan that we all actually use Equal Opportunity Employer Lambda is an Equal Opportunity employer. Applicants are considered without regard to race, color, religion, creed, national origin, age, sex, gender, marital status, sexual orientation and identity, genetic information, veteran status, citizenship, or any other factors prohibited by local, state, or federal law.