Principal Data Center Operator - Process Engineering and Improvement

You need to be highly motivated, self-driven, and possess a strong combination of technical, operational, and communication skills. This role requires someone who can translate complex technical concepts and operational practices into clear, scalable documentation and repeatable processes. Success in this position depends not only on solving technical challenges, but also on capturing knowledge, improving workflows, and building operational frameworks that enable teams across regions to execute consistently and efficiently.

You will combine hands-on technical expertise with exceptional technical writing and process engineering capabilities—supporting escalations, incident response, and operational health across one or more data centers while creating and maintaining the documentation, standards, and procedures that drive operational excellence. Working with a global, multi-level team, you will identify opportunities to improve existing processes, develop new operational procedures, and establish documentation that reduces risk, improves consistency, accelerates onboarding, and enables scale across Oracle Data Center Operations.

Key Responsibilities

You need to be highly motivated, self-driven, and have a combination of strong analytical, communication, and project skills. You will also: 

• Serve as a technical author and process engineer for Data Center Operations, creating and maintaining operational procedures, standards, runbooks, knowledge articles, and engineering documentation.
• Translate complex technical concepts, troubleshooting activities, and operational practices into clear, actionable documentation for global audiences.
• Analyze existing workflows and operational practices to identify documentation gaps, process inefficiencies, and opportunities for standardization.
• Design, document, and implement new operational processes that improve consistency, scalability, efficiency, and operational readiness.
• Partner with technicians, engineers, program managers, and SMEs to capture institutional knowledge and convert it into sustainable operational procedures.
• Establish documentation standards, governance, and review processes to ensure accuracy, quality, consistency, and long-term maintainability.
• Drive continuous improvement initiatives by leveraging operational data, incident trends, lessons learned, and stakeholder feedback to refine procedures and workflows.
• Lead documentation efforts resulting from incident response, RCAs, region expansions, infrastructure deployments, and operational changes.
• Apply ITSM disciplines; ITIL experience preferred.
• Support new region builds and expansions (remote and onsite) to meet quality and schedule goals. 
• Serve as liaison with project teams and engineering to manage timelines, dependencies, and capacity needs. 
• Partner cross-functionally to uphold safety, readiness, and operational excellence during builds.
• Oversee installations, repairs, inventory, and logistics. 
• Guide replacements/upgrades and support site improvements through implementation.
• Plan and execute rack deployments, installs, and physical network changes. 
• Drive preventative maintenance and facility optimization (airflow/pressure, containment, power trains) to improve stability and efficiency.
• Provide support for complex escalations. 
• Evaluate operational processes, workflows, and support models to identify opportunities for simplification, automation, standardization, and risk reduction.
• Develop measurable improvements to operational procedures and track outcomes through defined success metrics.
• Drive adoption of new processes through documentation, training, stakeholder engagement, and operational change management.
• Champion a culture of continuous improvement by promoting knowledge sharing, operational excellence, and process discipline across Data Center Operations.

Required Qualifications

• Experience in data center operations, technical support, and/or engineering. 
• Working knowledge of power, cooling, structured cabling, and connectivity. 
• Basic understanding of network architecture and common protocols. 
• Knowledge of OCI and cloud computing concepts. 
• Experience supporting enterprise customers with a strong customer-outcome mindset. 
• Ability to diagnose issues, identify root cause, and deliver durable fixes. 
• Hands-on experience with enterprise server, storage, and networking technologies. 
• Server administration experience, especially Linux/Unix.
• Demonstrated experience creating technical documentation, operational procedures, runbooks, knowledge articles, and engineering standards for technical audiences. 
• Proven ability to transform complex technical concepts and operational activities into clear, concise, and actionable documentation. 
• Experience analyzing, designing, documenting, and improving operational processes in a technical or engineering environment. 
• Strong process engineering mindset with the ability to identify inefficiencies, develop scalable solutions, and drive operational standardization. 
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills with exceptional attention to detail and documentation quality.
• Experience developing operational documentation programs, knowledge management systems, or documentation governance frameworks. 
• Experience applying Lean, Six Sigma, or other continuous improvement methodologies to operational process design and optimization. 
• Experience leading cross-functional process improvement initiatives in data center, cloud, infrastructure, or technology operations environments. 

Preferred Job Qualifications

Education and/or Experience:

11 years of experience in IT infrastructure support, server administration, or data center operations, design, and layout

OR

Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Systems, Information Technology, or related field AND 7 years of experience in IT infrastructure support, server administration, or data center operations, design, and layout

OR

Master's Degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Systems, Information Technology, or related field AND 5 years of experience in IT infrastructure support, server administration, or data center operations, design, and layout

OR

Doctorate in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Systems, Information Technology, or related field AND 3 years of experience in IT infrastructure support, server administration, or data center operations, design, and layout.

 

Additional Experience:

• Data Center or Cloud Industry Certifications.
• Experience developing operational documentation programs, knowledge management systems, or documentation governance frameworks. 
• Experience applying Lean, Six Sigma, or other continuous improvement methodologies to operational process design and optimization. 
• Experience leading cross-functional process improvement initiatives in data center, cloud, infrastructure, or technology operations environments.

Career Level - IC4