SlipstreamJobs tracks this role from the company's public career site. Apply directly on the employer's site.
Salary: USD 150,000 - 250,000 / annual
Etched is building frontier AI inference hardware and clusters. As the Facilities Engineering Operations Lead, you will be the first hire in this function, owning day-to-day operations of Etched's AI data center. You will build the operating system from scratch—procedures, maintenance programs, on-call rotations, and alarming—then create the playbook that scales to every future site.
Key responsibilities include:
- Own end-to-end data center operations: uptime, incident response, and escalation for power, cooling, and white space
- Build foundational operating systems: SOPs, MOPs, EOPs, change management, preventive/predictive maintenance, shift coverage, on-call protocols, and incident/RCA processes
- Define SLOs and response plans for outage events at fleet, rack, and server levels
- Operate the liquid cooling plant for high-density racks: CDUs, secondary fluid loops, water chemistry, filtration, leak detection, flow and inlet-temperature monitoring
- Own electrical operations: switchgear, busway, PDUs, power connector topology, load balancing, lockout/tagout (LOTO), and arc-flash safety
- Manage electrical, mechanical, CDU OEM, and fire/life safety vendors and contractors
- Stand up monitoring and alarming with engineering across BMS/DCIM and rack/CDU telemetry
- Run rack deployment logistics: receiving, staging, install, commissioning, turn-up handoff, decommissioning, and RMA flows
- Track spares and critical parts inventory
- Report operational metrics: uptime, PUE, incidents, risks, capacity headroom
- Help build the team, starting with facilities engineering technicians and a BMS specialist
- Design replicable processes and site-readiness checklists for future locations
This role is onsite at Etched's data center and Milpitas sites, with regular time at San Jose headquarters.
REQUIREMENTS:
- 4–8+ years in critical facilities and data center operations, including time as a Lead or Senior Critical Facilities Engineer or single-site Facilities Manager
- Hands-on experience operating liquid cooling in production (CDUs, direct-to-chip/DLC, secondary fluid loops)
- Deep working knowledge of data center electrical distribution (switchgear, UPS, busway, PDUs) and safe work practices (LOTO, arc flash, NFPA 70E)
- Experience writing and drilling SOPs, MOPs, and EOPs, and running change management and maintenance programs
- Experience leading incident response and root cause analysis
- Track record managing mechanical, electrical, and fire/life safety vendors
- Working knowledge of BMS, DCIM, and power monitoring systems
- Readiness to own the whole site, not just a shift or a system
- Deeply creative and able to think from first principles
STRONG ADDITIONAL QUALIFICATIONS:
- Running high-density GPU/AI infrastructure at a neocloud, hyperscaler, or colocation provider
- Standing up a new site or data hall, including commissioning and turn-up
- Building and staffing 24/7 operations and on-call rotations
- Familiarity with modern ML and LLM model architectures
- Programming ability in Python or another scripting language
- Familiarity with AI tools for programming/coding
- Startup experience or comfort in fast-paced environments
