How to become a Critical Facilities Manager
Runs a data centre’s facilities: its people, its operating limits, its customers and its incidents, and leads its safety duties.
There’s a page for this role in , with its licences and local details.
What the role does
Runs the site’s facilities: its people, its operating limits, its customers and its incidents, and leads its safety duties.
What a shift looks like
Office hours, with on-call for major incidents. Budgets, contractors, customer reviews, safety and compliance, and the people who run the shifts.
What employers call it
- Critical Environment Operations Manager (hyperscale)
- Data Center Facility Manager (hyperscale)
- Facilities Manager, Data Center Operations (hyperscale)
- Critical Operations Manager (hyperscale, colocation and wholesale)
- Facility Manager (colocation and wholesale)
- Site Operations Manager (colocation and wholesale)
- Manager Data Center Operations (colocation and wholesale)
- Data Center Facility Operations Manager (FM and service contractor)
- Manager, Critical Facilities Operations (hyperscale)
- Manager, Data Center Facilities (hyperscale)
- Facilities Manager (cloud and AI compute)
- DC Operations Manager - Critical Infrastructure (cloud and AI compute)
- Manager, US Data Center Facilities (cloud and AI compute)
- Compute Infrastructure, Critical Facilities Manager (cloud and AI compute)
- Senior Technical Services Manager (colocation and wholesale)
Skills
The level the role needs in each, on FacilityVR’s five levels from Aware to Authority.
Site safety
- Assess risk and plan safe work Leads others
Safe isolation
- Authorise isolations Independent, desirable
Leadership
- Lead a shift Authority
- Coordinate an incident response Leads others
- Find root causes and learn from incidents Leads others
- Keep customers informed during an incident Leads others
Procedures and documents
- Work within change management Leads others
- Write and review a MOP Independent
Monitoring and response
- Read trends and capacity Independent
Commissioning
- Accept capacity in phases Leads others
- Check operational readiness at handover Independent
Power transfer and generation
- Prime and behind-the-meter power Independent
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 Lead Critical Facilities Technician, typically 4 years
- From Critical Facilities Supervisor, typically 3 years
- From Chief Engineer, typically 3 years
Where it leads
- Data Centre Site Manager, typically 3 years
Jobs open now
None right now. See every open job.
Questions about data centre careers? Ask about data centre careers
Sources and licences
Occupation codes: 1219 Business services and administration managers not elsewhere classified.
- 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)