Senior Planning & Deployment Engineer

The PDE serves as the critical planning and technical-readiness function between program management, engineering, low-voltage vendors (LVVs), and Data Center Build and Deployment Engineers. The role owns the upfront technical and operational review of deployment projects, ensuring requirements are complete, accurate, executable, and ready for field implementation.

By identifying design gaps, material issues, dependencies, risks, and omissions before work reaches the data hall, the PDC enables field engineers to remain focused on execution, vendor oversight, validation, testing, troubleshooting, and capacity delivery.

The successful candidate will combine deep low-voltage infrastructure knowledge, strong project-management capabilities, technical deployment experience, and effective vendor and stakeholder management.

Key Responsibilities

Project Planning & Technical Readiness

• Ingest new data center build and capacity deployment projects and drive them through deployment readiness.
• Conduct comprehensive technical reviews of project requirements before field execution.
• Validate hardware requirements, Bills of Materials (BOMs), cut sheets/patching documentation, rack positioning, passive infrastructure, and associated deployment requirements.
• Identify technical gaps, omissions, inconsistencies, and dependencies early enough to prevent downstream deployment delays.
• Review project scope, schedules, milestones, resources, and critical-path activities to confirm execution readiness.
• Coordinate RFQ activities and vendor engagement required to support deployment.
• Develop and coordinate early-access plans to maximize deployment readiness and accelerate capacity delivery.
• Ensure required materials, documentation, resources, and dependencies are validated before handoff to field engineering teams.

Deployment Execution

• Serve as a central coordination point throughout the deployment lifecycle, from project intake through field handoff and capacity delivery.
• Partner closely with Data Center Build and Deployment Engineers, Technical Program Managers, Delivery teams, Automation teams, and all relevant other stakeholders to maintain alignment on scope, schedule, dependencies, and execution.
• Attend relevant project meetings and translate project-level decisions, changes, risks, and requirements into clear guidance for field engineering stakeholders.
• Track milestones, deliverables, dependencies, risks, and blockers across multiple concurrent projects and data center build deployments.
• Proactively identify schedule or execution risks and drive mitigation plans before impacting committed delivery dates.
• Escalate critical issues with a clear assessment of impact, identify resolution ownersand recommended resolution.
• Maintain clear and timely communication regarding project status, risks, decisions, and changes.

Design Change Request Management and Validation

• Review Design Change Requests (DCRs) for technical and operational impact.
• Coordinate implementation of approved changes across engineering, vendors, program management, and field deployment teams.
• Evaluate time bound impacts of changes on materials, cut sheets, BOMs, schedules, resources, and capacity commitments.
• Re-establish execution plans and clearly articulate risks and impacts to schedule.
• Ensure revised requirements and documentation are accurately communicated to the teams responsible for implementation.

Vendor Management

• Coordinate closely with low-voltage vendors to ensure scope, schedules, technical requirements, and quality expectations are clearly understood.
• Support RFQ, planning, readiness, and execution activities with vendor partners.
• Conduct vendor project and business reviews to evaluate progress, risks, roadblocks, quality, and schedule performance.
• Hold vendors accountable for contracted commitments and drive resolution of execution issues.
• Partner with field engineers to address technical and operational vendor challenges.
• Identify recurring or systemic vendor issues and develop mechanisms to improve quality, predictability, and execution.

Cross-Functional Collaboration Could be removed

• Collaborate across Engineering, Delivery, Automation, Supply Chain, Program Management, Operations, and vendor organizations to enable seamless capacity delivery.
• Provide Technical Program Managers with clear visibility into deployment readiness, progress, dependencies, and risks.
• Translate program and design requirements into actionable execution guidance for field teams and vendors.
• Build trusted relationships across stakeholder groups and ensure concerns and requirements are identified early.
• Facilitate alignment when competing priorities, dependencies, or technical constraints affect delivery.

Process & Continuous Improvement

• Develop scalable, repeatable processes and mechanisms that improve deployment quality, speed, and predictability.
• Identify recurring deployment defects and address root causes rather than relying on repeated tactical workarounds.
• Recommend and implement improvements to planning, technical validation, vendor management, project handoff, and deployment workflows.
• Partner with Automation and Program Management teams to identify opportunities to reduce manual effort and improve data and documentation quality.
• Document best practices, lessons learned, and standardized deployment processes.
• Evaluate the effectiveness of process improvements and their impact on engineering teams, vendors, stakeholders, and delivery performance.

Required Qualifications & Experience

• 5+ years' experience with data center, telecommunications, or low-voltage infrastructure deployments.
• 5+ years of structured cabling infrastructure experience, including copper and optical fiber deployment methodologies and industry best practices.
• Demonstrated ability to review and validate technical deployment documentation, including cut sheets, patching matrices/schedules, Bills of Materials, rack layouts, and hardware requirements.
• Knowledge of network infrastructure, connectivity, networking layers, and testing and validation methodologies.
• Experience coordinating or managing low-voltage vendors and contractors in complex deployment environments.
• Strong project-management skills, including project scoping, scheduling, dependency management, resource planning, risk management, and critical-path management.
• Demonstrated ability to manage multiple concurrent projects and prioritize effectively as requirements and business needs change.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills with the ability to identify risks and gaps before affecting delivery schedule.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills with the ability to clearly communicate technical issues, project status, risks, and required actions to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Demonstrated ability to operate independently while effectively coordinating across multiple teams and stakeholders.

Core Competencies

Planning & Execution: Effectively manages multiple moderately complex deployment activities, establishes clear priorities, monitors milestones and dependencies, and adjusts execution plans as resources, requirements, or schedules change.

Technical Excellence: Applies strong data center and low-voltage infrastructure knowledge to validate deployment requirements, identify technical gaps, and ensure projects are ready for successful field execution.

Ownership & Problem Solving: Proactively identify risk mitigation and project blockers, performs structured analysis, drives issues toward resolution, and escalates appropriately with recommended solutions rather than simply identifying problems.

Collaboration & Stakeholder Management: Builds effective partnerships across technical teams, program management, vendors, and business stakeholders. Establishes clear expectations, communicates proactively, and develops trust through consistent execution and follow-through.

Vendor Management: Establishes clear expectations with vendor partners, monitors execution and quality, identifies gaps, and drives accountability for commitments and corrective actions.

Continuous Improvement: Identifies opportunities to simplify, standardize, and automate deployment processes. Develops repeatable mechanisms that improve quality, efficiency, predictability, and delivery velocity.

Continuous Learning: Maintains current knowledge of data center technologies, deployment methodologies, tools, and industry best practices. Seeks feedback and applies lessons learned to improve future execution.

Knowledge Sharing & Development: Shares technical and operational knowledge across the organization, coaches less-experienced team members, contributes to best practices, and participates in candidate interviews and talent development activities.

Success in the Role

Success in this role is demonstrated by the ability to consistently deliver deployment-ready projects to field engineering teams with accurate requirements, validated technical documentation, clear execution plans, identified dependencies, and mitigation risks.

The PDC should reduce the amount of planning and administrative work performed by Data Center Build and Deployment Engineers, allowing field engineers to focus on data-hall execution and technical vendor oversight. Ultimately, the role contributes to faster capacity delivery, fewer field-discovered issues, improved vendor execution, reduced rework, and more predictable data center deployments.

Provide leadership and expertise in evaluating complex business problems and create business strategies, frequently operating at the leading edge of technology or new business models. Provides direction and mentoring to others, sought out as an expert within the team and organization. Recommends and justifies major changes to existing business processes. Able to work in a dynamic environment as shown by the ability to demonstrate resilience in driving change.   Proven Communication skills with the ability to influence the organization through key stakeholder relationships. BS or MS degree or equivalent experience relevant to functional area. Prefer 12 plus years of related experience.