IT Global Data Center Manager

Cohesity•Eagan, MN

1d•$136,000 - $170,000•Hybrid

About The Position

Cohesity is a leader in AI-powered data security and management. We are looking for a Manager / Senior Manager, Global Data Center Operations to own the day-to-day performance, capacity, and strategic direction of three engineering data centers located in India, Minnesota, and Sacramento. This role combines deep, hands-on technical knowledge of data center hardware and networking with the operational discipline to standardize processes across regions, the financial acumen to manage a capital budget, and the leadership skills to build and develop a distributed, high-performing team. The ideal candidate is equally comfortable racking a server, designing a network topology, defending a capex request, setting expectations with developers, and coaching a site lead.

Requirements

6–8 years of experience in data center operations, IT infrastructure, or a closely related field, including hands-on hardware and networking work.
Demonstrated experience managing physical data center infrastructure: servers, storage, racking, power, and cooling.
Solid understanding of enterprise networking concepts (LAN/WAN, routing, switching, segmentation).
Experience developing or improving operational processes across multiple teams or sites.
Experience owning or contributing significantly to a capital equipment budget.
Proven people leadership experience, including hiring, coaching, and performance management.
Willingness to travel up to 20% to support India, Minnesota, and Sacramento sites.
Strong written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to work across time zones and cultures.

Nice To Haves

Bachelor’s degree in computer science, Information Systems, Electrical Engineering, or equivalent practical experience.
Experience supporting engineering or R&D data center environments specifically (versus general enterprise IT).
Relevant certifications (e.g., CCNA/CCNP, Data Center Certified Associate/Professional, PMP).
Experience managing globally distributed teams across India and U.S. sites.
Familiarity with capacity planning and infrastructure-as-code / automation tooling.

Responsibilities

Maintain deep, hands-on knowledge of server, storage, and rack-level hardware across all three sites, including specification, installation, lifecycle management, and end-of-life planning.
Oversee capacity planning, power and cooling utilization, and physical infrastructure standards to ensure consistent uptime and reliability across all data centers.
Partner with vendors and OEMs on hardware procurement, warranty support, OEM roadmaps, and refresh cycles.
Design and evaluate infrastructure solutions that balance performance, cost, resiliency, and scalability for engineering workloads across all three data centers.
Serve as a technical escalation point working with other team members for complex infrastructure issues, driving root-cause analysis and long-term remediation.
Evaluate emerging technologies and recommend adoption where it improves reliability, efficiency, or cost.
Engage directly with R&D customers to understand workload requirements, prioritize infrastructure needs, and ensure data center solutions align with engineering priorities.
Have good understanding of the networking architecture connecting and supporting the three data centers, including LAN/WAN, switching, routing, and security segmentation.
Bring practical SAN and storage-networking knowledge, including Fibre Channel/iSCSI concepts, zoning, multipathing, throughput, latency, and redundancy considerations that support high-performance engineering workloads.
Understand how compute, storage, and network layers interact in a data center environment, with the ability to partner across SAN, network, virtualization, and platform teams to troubleshoot performance and connectivity issues.
Collaborate with security and network engineering teams on design reviews, incident response, and customer requirements.
Build and standardize operational processes, runbooks, and change management procedures across all three sites to drive consistency and reduce risk.
Establish and record metrics and KPIs to track data center health, incident trends, and team performance; use data to drive continuous improvement.
Champion a culture of process discipline while remaining flexible to regional operational realities.
Own the annual capex budget across the three data centers, including forecasting, and cost justification for hardware and infrastructure investment.
Track spend against budget throughout the year and report variances, risks, and opportunities to leadership.
Build business cases for major infrastructure investments, balancing cost against reliability and growth needs.
Track and record invoices related to data center space/power for the three data centers and serve as a contact point for invoice issues.
Recruit, develop, and retain a distributed team of data center engineers and technicians across India, Minnesota, and Sacramento.
Foster a collaborative, high-accountability team culture that prioritizes safety, reliability, and continuous learning — in line with our focus on team success and dynamics.
Set clear goals, provide regular coaching and feedback, and create growth paths for team members at each site.
Coordinate across time zones to ensure consistent communication, shared standards, and a unified sense of team identity across geographically dispersed staff.