DC Construction Manager

Description

Fermi America is seeking a Data Center Construction Manager to serve as Fermi’s daily field presence overseeing the design-build partner responsible for delivering its data center buildings.

Under a lump-sum turnkey delivery model, the partner provides design, construction labor, superintendents, and field engineering. Fermi’s role in the field is not to direct that work. It is to verify what is being built and reported—and to remove owner-side obstacles quickly enough that the partner has no basis to claim Fermi caused delays.

Position Overview

Two primary exposures define this position. The first is owner-caused delay. Because the partner controls both design and construction, its strongest claim path is that Fermi was unresponsive. Every access request, field decision, or interference left unresolved can become a source of entitlement. The second is progress-based payment. This role walks the work and confirms that invoiced work is installed, complete, and accurate in quantity.

The boundaries between this position and adjacent roles are deliberate:

• The Director of DC Construction owns the contract and the commercial position with the partner.
• The DC Senior Technical Specialist owns technical conformance with Fermi’s basis of design.
• DC QA/QC and Commissioning owns the quality process and commissioning authority.
• The Data Center Construction Manager owns field reality: what is physically happening on site, whether it aligns with the schedule and pay application, and the conditions present while the work occurs.

This role reports to the Director of DC Construction and works daily with the design-build partner’s construction leadership. It also works closely with the DC Senior Technical Specialist, DC QA/QC and Commissioning, the DC Scheduler, project controls, safety, and the campus power and connectivity teams.

When a DC Project Manager is assigned to a tenant account, this role takes day-to-day field priorities from that Project Manager while continuing to report to the Director of DC Construction. Verification of work in place, progress reporting, and maintenance of the field record remain independent of the Project Manager’s reported cost and schedule position.

This is a full-time, on-site position.

Key Responsibilities

• Serve as Fermi’s daily field interface with the design-build partner’s construction leadership, maintaining a continuous presence at the work face across all active areas of the building.
• Verify physical work in place against reported progress and pay-application quantities, providing the field basis for payment recommendations in coordination with the DC Lead Cost & Invoice Analyst.
• Drive the resolution of owner-side requests, decisions, access needs, and interferences within committed response times. Maintain records demonstrating Fermi’s responsiveness for claims defense.
• Maintain daily and weekly field records, including manpower counts by craft, equipment on site, weather conditions, work performed by area, deliveries, and any condition that could later support or defeat a claim.
• Track schedule adherence at the work face by comparing actual progress with the accepted look-ahead schedule. Escalate constraints to the DC Scheduler and the Director of DC Construction before available float is consumed.
• Coordinate site logistics and mobilization, including site access, laydown and staging areas, craft parking, temporary utilities, crane and heavy-lift coordination, delivery sequencing, and shared use of campus roads and infrastructure.
• Manage field interfaces between building and campus scopes, including power interconnection, connectivity and fiber, adjacent construction activity, and tenant activity on or near the site.
• When a building is delivered as a powered shell, enforce the field demarcation between the base building and tenant fit-out. This includes access, sequencing, and physical conditions where Fermi and tenant work meet. Escalate questions about the location of this boundary to the DC Senior Design Integration Manager rather than resolving them in the field.
• Identify potential scope growth, differing site conditions, and change events at the point they occur. Document conditions and notify the Director of DC Construction before positions harden.
• Support the DC Senior Technical Specialist with field access, walkdown coordination, and follow-up on technical nonconformances without assuming technical authority for design conformance.
• Support DC QA/QC and Commissioning with inspection access, hold-point coordination, and punch-list execution in the field without assuming quality or commissioning authority.
• Observe and escalate unsafe conditions and behaviors. Hold the partner accountable to Fermi requirements and applicable regulations, stopping work when an imminent hazard exists.
• Coordinate field readiness for commissioning activities, including system-boundary access, temporary services, and area-turnover sequencing in support of the commissioning schedule.
• Verify that as-built conditions are captured as work proceeds rather than reconstructed during closeout.
• Provide field input for weekly and monthly reporting, including progress narratives, constraint status, and forward-looking risks.
• Support Procurement and the Director of DC Construction by verifying the receipt, storage, preservation, and transfer of care, custody, and control of owner-furnished equipment.

AI-Enabled Execution Philosophy

Fermi America integrates artificial intelligence and advanced analytics into its core project-delivery workflows. The Data Center Construction Manager will be expected to embrace and contribute to this philosophy by:

• Using AI-assisted analysis of daily reports, manpower data, and progress photography to detect differences between reported and actual progress earlier than a monthly reporting cycle would allow.
• Applying image and reality-capture analysis—including drone footage and 360-degree walkthrough data—to establish an objective record of installed quantities and field conditions over time.
• Leveraging automated comparisons of pay-application quantities against captured field data to support payment recommendations.
• Using AI-assisted reviews of the partner’s look-ahead schedules and field constraints to identify commitments that are not achievable before they are accepted.
• Supporting AI-driven analysis of correspondence and request logs to track owner response times and document Fermi’s performance in the event of a delay claim.
• Incorporating field lessons learned into Fermi’s construction-execution standards so that successive buildings can mobilize more quickly.

Requirements

Required Qualifications

• 12+ years of experience in construction management, field supervision, or owner’s representation on large capital projects, including at least five years working on data centers, mission-critical facilities, or comparable complex, MEP-intensive projects.
• Demonstrated experience as an owner’s representative or general contractor field leader with accountability for progress verification and field decision-making—not solely reporting.
• Working knowledge of data center construction scope and sequencing, including shell and core, MEP rough-in, critical power, cooling distribution, direct-liquid cooling, and controls installation.
• Experience with lump-sum turnkey, design-build, or EPC delivery models, including a clear understanding of where owner interference and owner-caused delay exposure can arise.
• Demonstrated experience identifying and documenting change events and differing site conditions in the field and supporting claims defense with contemporaneous records.
• Strong command of site logistics on congested or multi-contractor sites, including access control, laydown planning, delivery sequencing, and heavy-lift coordination.
• Ability to read and critically assess construction schedules, including validating look-ahead schedules and identifying constraints, with sufficient expertise to challenge a contractor’s plan.
• Strong knowledge of construction safety requirements, along with the judgment and willingness to stop work when necessary.
• Clear written communication and disciplined documentation habits, with the credibility to maintain a position with a contractor’s field leadership under schedule pressure.
• Bachelor’s degree in Construction Management, Engineering, or a related field—or equivalent field experience.
• OSHA 30-Hour Construction certification or the ability to obtain it within 90 days of hire.

Preferred Qualifications

• Field experience on hyperscale data center programs for major technology companies or leading data center developers.
• Owner-side experience on a lump-sum turnkey or design-build data center project.
• Experience with high-density and liquid-cooled deployments, including coolant distribution unit (CDU) and facility-water installation and startup.
• Familiarity with reality-capture and construction-analytics platforms, including drone surveys, 360-degree documentation, and progress-tracking tools.
• Experience supporting field commissioning through Level 4 and Level 5 testing and IT load delivery.
• Experience mobilizing successive buildings using a repeatable delivery playbook.
• Comfort working in a high-growth organization where this role will help define field-execution standards as the campus expands.

Work Requirements

• This is a 100% on-site position based at Fermi’s campus in Amarillo, Texas, with occasional travel to vendor facilities, fabrication shops, and partner offices as needed.
• Continuous presence on an active construction site is required. This includes walking job sites throughout the day, climbing ladders and scaffolding, entering confined or elevated work areas, and navigating unfinished structures in varying weather conditions.
• Willingness to wear all required personal protective equipment (PPE), including a hard hat, safety glasses, high-visibility vest, steel-toe boots, fall protection when required, and hearing protection.
• Flexibility to support extended shifts, night work, weekend activities, and outage or tie-in windows during critical construction and commissioning milestones.