Principal Data Center Forensic Engineer

Switch•Las Vegas, NV

2d•Remote

About The Position

This role serves as Switch’s technical authority for forensic investigation of mission-critical infrastructure events. You lead high-severity investigations across electrical, mechanical, cooling, and controls systems, determine true root causes, and ensure systemic risks are permanently eliminated across the fleet. The role operates at enterprise scope and influences standards, containment strategy, and long-term reliability improvements without direct people management responsibility.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in Electrical, Mechanical, or Controls Engineering required.
12 or more years of experience in hyperscale or mission-critical environments.
Deep expertise in electrical and mechanical system behavior, protection schemes, and failure mechanisms.
Mastery of structured root cause analysis and forensic investigation techniques.
Strong ability to interpret large operational datasets and telemetry.

Nice To Haves

Experience investigating multi-site or fleet-wide incidents preferred.
Experience working with OEM engineering teams or third-party forensic specialists preferred.

Responsibilities

Lead forensic investigations into major incidents, equipment failures, and operational anomalies across all data center regions.
Reconstruct event timelines and failure sequences using physical evidence, telemetry, protection trip data, logs, and sequence-of-events records.
Produce clear, evidence-based forensic reports for executive and technical leadership.
Identify recurring patterns across sites, equipment classes, vendors, or configurations and define systemic risk statements.
Drive containment and corrective actions to ensure systemic issues are permanently resolved fleet-wide.
Apply structured root cause methodologies to determine underlying failure mechanisms.
Conduct on-site inspections, component evaluations, and condition assessments when required.
Validate findings against system design intent, operating constraints, and expected behavior.
Establish and maintain forensic investigation standards, templates, and documentation frameworks.
Partner with Operations, Controls, Engineering, Reliability, and OEM partners to implement durable corrective actions.
Mentor engineers and strengthen investigative capability across the organization.