How to become a Chief Engineer
The site’s technical authority: owns its procedures, reviews its changes, finds the root causes of failures, and accepts new plant into service.
There’s a page for this role in , with its licences and local details.
What the role does
The site’s technical authority, between the shifts and the facilities manager: procedures, change review, root causes, capacity and the technical depth behind the shifts. Witnesses commissioning tests and accepts plant into service. Reached from Lead or Supervisor or, with lead or senior specialist experience, from a specialist track.
What a shift looks like
Office hours, with on-call. Change reviews, method statements, investigations, capacity planning, and witnessing commissioning tests.
What employers call it
- Manager Engineering Operations (colocation and wholesale)
- Facilities Chief Engineer (colocation and wholesale)
- Critical Environments Chief Engineer (FM and service contractor)
- Senior Chief Engineer (FM and service contractor)
- Technical Services Manager (colocation and wholesale)
- Facilities Senior Engineer (FM and service contractor)
Skills
The level the role needs in each, on FacilityVR’s five levels from Aware to Authority.
Safe isolation
- Authorise isolations Leads others
Procedures and documents
- Work within change management Leads others
- Write and review a MOP Leads others
Leadership
- Coach and assess others Leads others
- Find root causes and learn from incidents Leads others
LV distribution
- AI load swings and how they are smoothed Leads others
- Trace the power path and its redundancy Leads others
MV switching
- Read MV systems and their protection Leads others
- Write and carry out a switching programme Independent, desirable
Cooling plant
- Psychrometrics and the thermal envelope Leads others
Monitoring and response
- Read trends and capacity Leads others
Commissioning
- Accept capacity in phases Leads others
- Check operational readiness at handover Leads others
- Work in a site that is part live and part under construction Leads others
- Run functional performance tests Independent
- Take part in integrated systems testing Independent
Site safety
- Assess risk and plan safe work Leads others
Liquid cooling
- Know who owns each part of the loop Leads others, desirable
- Fill, flush and vent a TCS loop Independent, desirable
- Liquid-cooled IT and its loops Independent, desirable
Power transfer and generation
- Coordinate load changes with the site plant or utility Leads others
- Prime and behind-the-meter power Leads others
Emergency response
- Recognise and report a suspected cyber incident Independent
Licences and credentials
Licences depend on the country you work in, and sometimes the state. The role’s page for Australia lists them there.
Ways in and ways on
From another data centre role
- From Senior Technician, Electrical, typically 3 years
- From Senior Technician, Mechanical and Cooling, typically 3 years
- From Senior Technician, Controls and BMS, typically 3 years
- From Lead Critical Facilities Technician, typically 2 years
- From Critical Facilities Supervisor
Where it leads
- Critical Facilities Manager, typically 3 years
- Commissioning Engineer (a sideways move)
- Facilities Assurance Lead (a sideways move)
Jobs open now
None right now. See every open job.
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Sources and licences
Occupation codes: 3113 Electrical engineering technicians.
- Critical Facilities reference framework © Facility Labs. (CC BY 4.0)
- ISCO-08, International Labour Organization, as published in ESCO v1.2.1. This service uses the ESCO classification of the European Commission. (Commission Decision 2011/833/EU on the reuse of Commission documents)