Data Center Standards Architect
Lambda · San Jose, United States · 2d ago
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 office location 4 days per week; Lambda’s designated work from home day is currently Tuesday.
What You’ll Do
As a Data Center Standards Architect, you will serve as a principal-level technical leader responsible for designing the standards, systems, tools, and processes that help Lambda scale its data center infrastructure. This role is ideal for someone who has led engineering teams or large technical programs and now wants to operate as a high-leverage individual contributor shaping how a fast-growing infrastructure organization works.
You will:
Define and own Lambda’s data center engineering standards for high-density AI and GPU infrastructure environments.
Create repeatable reference architectures, design patterns, technical specifications, and deployment standards that improve speed, quality, reliability, and consistency across data center builds.
Develop the engineering “operating system” for data center scale, including standards libraries, design review processes, decision records, quality gates, commissioning criteria, acceptance checklists, exception processes, and operational handoff frameworks.
Translate lessons learned from individual deployments into reusable mechanisms that make future deployments safer, faster, and more predictable.
Establish technical standards across areas such as power distribution, cooling, liquid cooling readiness, rack integration, structured cabling, fiber management, network rooms, out-of-band management, telemetry, DCIM/BMS integrations, physical security, maintainability, and operational readiness.
Lead cross-functional architecture reviews for new data center designs, expansions, retrofits, and infrastructure programs.
Identify organizational bottlenecks and design systems, tools, and workflows that reduce ambiguity, improve accountability, and help teams execute at scale.
Build governance mechanisms for standards adoption, including exception management, risk reviews, lifecycle ownership, metrics, and continuous improvement loops.
Act as a technical advisor to senior engineering and infrastructure leadership on data center strategy, design tradeoffs, resiliency, operational risk, and scalability.
Mentor engineers and technical leaders across the organization by raising the bar for systems thinking, documentation, design rigor, and operational excellence.
You
Have operated as a staff, principal, or director-level engineering leader in data center engineering, infrastructure engineering, facilities engineering, cloud infrastructure, hardware infrastructure, or a related technical domain.
Have experience designing or scaling standards, processes, tools, or governance systems across a complex engineering organization.
Bring a strong systems-thinking mindset and are comfortable turning ambiguous, one-off problems into repeatable, scalable mechanisms.
Have deep familiarity with data center infrastructure, including power, cooling, rack layouts, network infrastructure, cabling, commissioning, operational readiness, and lifecycle management.
Understand how to balance engineering excellence with delivery velocity, cost, risk, reliability, and operational simplicity.
Are comfortable influencing without direct authority across engineering, operations, construction, supply chain, finance, and executive stakeholders.
Communicate clearly through written standards, technical narratives, architecture diagrams, design reviews, and executive-level recommendations.
Have a track record of raising the technical bar for teams through better processes, better documentation, better decision-making frameworks, and better engineering discipline.
Are energized by building the systems that allow other engineers and operators to move faster and make better decisions.
Care deeply about reliability, maintainability, repeatability, and operational excellence in mission-critical infrastructure environments.
Nice to Have
Experience with AI, machine learning, GPU, HPC, or hyperscale cloud infrastructure.
Experience with high-density compute environments, liquid cooling, advanced thermal management, or next-generation data center design.
Experience building or operating infrastructure standards across multiple sites, regions, colocation providers, or global data center portfolios.
Familiarity with DCIM, BMS, EPMS, telemetry platforms, infrastructure observability, or workflow automation tools.
Experience creating internal platforms, tooling, dashboards, or knowledge systems that help engineering organizations scale.
Experience working with colocation providers, OEMs, ODMs, construction partners, commissioning agents, and critical facilities operations teams.
Experience leading technical governance forums, architecture review boards, standards councils, or large-scale engineering transformation programs.
Background in electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, systems engineering, network engineering, infrastructure architecture, or a related field.
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.