Critical Operations Integration Lead

STACK Infrastructure•Sterling, VA

3d•Onsite

About The Position

As STACK scales its portfolio across the Americas, ensuring that new capacity is delivered to the operational quality bar required from day one becomes increasingly complex — and increasingly critical. The Critical Operations Integration Lead sits at the intersection of construction, commissioning, and operations. This role is present during the final phases of delivery to ensure that what gets handed to site teams is complete, validated, and truly ready to operate — and builds the cross-site perspective that allows STACK to continuously raise the quality of how we deliver. That means field presence and pattern recognition in equal measure: identifying what recurring issues trace back to their source, and feeding that intelligence into the standards and processes that govern how we build and turn over capacity.

Requirements

5–8 years in critical infrastructure environments, with meaningful exposure to both the build/Cx side and operations
Analytical instinct: able to categorize findings, spot patterns, and build structured outputs others can act on
Hands-on familiarity with commissioning processes, turnover documentation, and BMS/EPMS systems from an operational use perspective
Working knowledge of construction QA/QC and what good GC execution looks like versus what gets accepted under schedule pressure
Enough operations experience to know what breaks operators post-handoff, and to speak credibly with site teams
Cross-functional credibility: able to work alongside Construction and Cx as a partner while holding an independent ops-interest perspective
Working knowledge of commissioning processes and what they do and don't verify, whether from a Cx, construction, or senior operations background.
Builder mindset: this role will create things that don't exist yet, the right candidate is energized by that
Bachelor's degree in Engineering, Construction Management, or related field, or equivalent experience

Nice To Haves

Direct data center experience in construction, commissioning, or hyperscale environments
Familiarity with controls deployment quality: point-to-point testing, logic mapping, alarming, and naming standards
Experience with CMMS platforms and understanding of how turnover quality affects long-term maintenance performance
Exposure to quality management systems or reliability-centered methodologies (FMEA, RCM, or equivalent)
Experience contributing to process improvement at a systems level, not just identifying problems but designing the mechanism that prevents recurrence

Responsibilities

Own formal readiness criteria and a risk-based go/no-go register for turnover.
Conduct pre-turnover readiness checks, evaluating handover packages for completeness and alignment with STACK's operational standards
Perform site walks focused on maintainability, safety access, operator touchpoints, and as-left equipment state prior to handover
Witness critical equipment functional performance tests and operator-facing BMS/EPMS alarm and controls tests
Verify that submittals, one-lines, O&M manuals, and warranty documentation are organized, complete, and accessible to site operators before handover
Ensure CMMS/EAM data is loaded and usable before turnover
Ensure punchlist items and deferred scope have clear ownership at handover, not inherited by default by the operations team
Identify issues that fall between teams as construction and commissioning phases close, and ensure those issues have a defined owner and resolution path before they become an operations burden
Verify critical spares, consumables, special tools, and vendor support paths are in place
Own early-life support and warranty-period defect capture with a standard defect taxonomy
Publish portfolio KPIs tied to readiness quality escapes
Partner with Construction in turnover meetings and walkdowns as an ops-interest voice, without adding gates or friction
Collaborate with Commissioning to carry operator-impact findings forward without altering Cx execution
Observe across sites and builds to identify thematic patterns in how quality issues originate and escape detection, not to duplicate the punchlist or Cx log but to surface what those logs collectively reveal about process and delivery gaps
Trace recurring themes upstream to their origin: a vendor QC gap, a GC execution pattern, a Cx scope boundary, or an acceptance criterion without teeth
Translate findings into process-level insights and evidence-backed recommendations: delivery process acceptance criteria updates, operations readiness checklist additions, GC contract requirements, or Cx scoping changes
Provide leadership with the clarity needed to decide what's worth fixing at the source and what's worth managing in operations, a distinction that currently gets made by default rather than by design
Work with construction, commissioning, and operations partners to ensure findings flow into the right downstream standards, training programs, and operational playbooks