Aligned Data Centers

Director – Design Management

Aligned Data Centers

full-time

Posted on:

Location Type: Office

Location: IAD-04 • United States

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Salary

💰 $190,000 - $230,000 per year

Job Level

Lead

About the role

  • Drive projects from inception through customer or business turnover, with heavy focus and leadership in the preconstruction and design phases of projects.
  • The Design Managers assume project lead role at design hand-off meeting from land enablement team and shifts overall project leadership to the Construction Manager (CM) at GC mobilization.
  • Main point of contact for design management team in particular campus or geographic region.
  • Works hand-in-hand with the regional Director, Construction Management to ensure performance certainty across all projects.
  • Direct the day-to-day design management operations and long-term strategic direction of projects.
  • Provide guidance and leadership throughout the entire lifecycle of projects, ensuring they are meeting or exceeding company expectations.
  • Develop and maintain deep-rooted industry relationships with leaders in the contracting community including design partners, AHJ’s, general contractors and trade partners.
  • Create effective tools to empower and incentivize design and contracting partners to innovate approaches and solutions for project delivery and specific challenges.
  • Coordination/communication with the land enablement group to ensure success with offsite improvements, early permitting, easements and environmental studies for all sites in the geographical region.
  • Collaborates with Director, Design Management peers in other regions to maintain consistency across all regions/projects.
  • Assists regional Director, Construction Management in collaborating/coordinating with other construction directors across all regions/projects.
  • Assist to interview, hire, and assure effective training and development of new and existing staff.
  • Reports status, successes, challenges, and plans of action to management team and company on a timely basis.
  • Develop, manage and be accountable for achievement of key departmental metrics.
  • Leads, evaluates, holds accountable and develops the regional Design Management team members in the following: Coordination/creation of project risk registers from land enablement phase through project completion/turnover to Aligned Operations Project design management: Coordinating onboarding of third-party design team and creation of design schedule to support project needs.
  • Overseeing management of external third-party design team through project completion/turnover to Aligned Operations.
  • Driving review and management of design deliverables; including stakeholder review and comment cycles.
  • Holding design teams accountable to design progression and design gating.
  • Working with SMEs, Operations, and CMs to ensure design compliance with Aligned Design Efficiency Capture (DEC).
  • Identifying design variances, tracks them and manages acquisition of necessary approvals, as required.
  • Enforcing design team’s accountability to Aligned’s Cost Control Log (CCL) and Complies, Deviates, Excludes (CDE) matrices.
  • Operating in lockstep with the CM on each project to ensure proper communications/escalations and regular reporting to all internal and external parties and leadership/management.
  • Creating, managing and updating project metrics in Smartsheets (project dashboards) for each project.
  • Owning or directing all administrative duties related to design management process.
  • Assisting CM with building and maintaining budget/cost models/all phase budgets for each project, specifically around design costs and timelines.
  • Working with CM to prepare and present all funding requests.
  • Coordinating with CM to prepare and present quarterly project updates for leadership.
  • In conjunction with CM, supports day-to-day program activities and initiatives (engage with architects, consultants, equipment providers, GCs, etc. Coordinate all project activities with building Operations while promoting safety and compliance initiatives and requirements on site).
  • Performs as the primary support role to the CM from GC mobilization to turnover to Operations.
  • Integrating with the sales and solutions engineering teams during the revenue generation process to meet with customers and ensure technical deliverables are met.
  • Interfacing with customer through fit-out design, construction and integration; accountable to successful delivery of customer contracts.
  • Managing the project with the business in mind and works to ensure project is meeting directives of CRC/SLT/Board.
  • Operating with a constant mindset of continuous improvement, creativity, efficiency and innovation.

Requirements

  • Bachelor’s degree in Construction Management, Engineering or equivalent
  • 12+ years progressive experience in successfully managing commercial construction project design programs, with data center experience required
  • Mechanical/Electrical background preferred
  • Deep network of leaders within the data center design and construction community
  • Ability to navigate AHJ’s within a particular region with depth of understanding of the positions within local zoning, permitting and inspection authorities.
  • Thorough understanding of various project delivery methods including IPD, Design-Build, and Design-Bid-Build.
  • Basic understanding of various contract methods including lump sum, CM at risk, open book GMP, etc
  • Advanced experience in Excel, Smartsheets and/or AutoCAD
  • Strong written and verbal communication skills
  • Ability to multi-task, with strong time and change management/organizational skills
  • Track record of mentoring and developing teams and individuals to take on new challenges and career opportunities
  • Ability to always maintain discretion and confidentiality
  • Ability to understand and follow clear directions and meet specific deadlines with reporting, communication and project schedules
  • Team player across the organization
  • Ability to interpret construction drawings and specifications
  • Knowledge of construction cost estimating methods and development of scopes of work.
  • Ability to understand construction project scopes.
  • Able to monitor and interpret design and schedule changes and forecast their impact on overall project costs
  • May travel at times up to 25%
Benefits
  • Health Coverage : Medical, dental, and vision insurance
  • Health Savings and Flexible Spending Accounts: HSA with employer contribution for eligible participants. FSA's offered for health and dependent care to increase tax savings.
  • Retirement Savings : 401(k) plan with company match
  • Paid Time Off and Holiday Pay : Includes sick and safe leave as required by Maryland law
  • Company-Sponsored Insurance : Short-Term Disability, Life Insurance, and Long-Term Disability (with medical election)
  • Optional Benefits : Voluntary life, critical illness, legal, and additional disability coverage
  • Wellness Programs : Employee assistance program (EAP), Wellhub gym membership, and other wellness initiatives
Applicant Tracking System Keywords

Tip: use these terms in your resume and cover letter to boost ATS matches.

Hard Skills & Tools
Construction ManagementProject Design ManagementData Center ExperienceMechanical BackgroundElectrical BackgroundProject Delivery MethodsContract MethodsConstruction Cost EstimatingInterpreting Construction DrawingsDesign Compliance
Soft Skills
LeadershipCommunicationTime ManagementChange ManagementOrganizational SkillsMentoringDiscretionTeam PlayerProblem SolvingContinuous Improvement
Certifications
Bachelor’s Degree in Construction ManagementBachelor’s Degree in Engineering