Data center jobs
Data center jobs
Each page covers one data center job: the daily work, the schedule, what you need to get hired and where it leads. Jobs are grouped into five tracks.
By Czarina Tabayoyong, Founder, Critical Path Hiring
Last reviewed · First published
Reviewed when pay or job requirements change.
The five tracks
Construction
Commissioning
Critical facilities and operations
IT and network
AI infrastructure
Roles by background
| Your background | Roles |
|---|---|
| Military (Navy nuclear, electrician's mate, Seabees, aviation maintenance) | Critical environment technician, Critical facilities engineer |
| Licensed or apprentice electrician | Data center electrician, Electrical commissioning technician |
| HVAC or refrigeration technician | Mechanical / HVAC technician, Mechanical commissioning technician |
| IT help desk or field service | Data center technician, Structured cabling technician |
| Commercial construction | Superintendent, MEP coordinator, BIM / VDC coordinator |
| Building automation or controls | Controls / BMS technician |
| Network engineering or HPC | Network / fiber technician, AI network engineer, GPU cluster engineer |
Pay
Pay by role and market is in the data center salary guide, and the salary calculator adjusts it for nine U.S. markets.
Questions
- Which data center jobs don't need a degree?
- People get into the technician roles from a trade, the military, IT help desk work or trade school. A commissioning technician needs a trade background, OSHA 10 or 30 and NFPA 70E, and no degree. Commissioning engineer roles hire commissioning technicians, military veterans and engineering graduates.
- Do data center jobs require travel?
- Commissioning jobs do. Commissioning technicians travel heavily, with early starts and overtime near deadlines. Commissioning engineers and agents are travel-heavy and onsite during testing. Operations roles run on shifts instead: rotating 12-hour shifts are common for data center technicians, critical environment technicians work rotating 12-hour shifts and on-call, critical facilities engineers work shifts or days with on-call, and chief engineers work Monday to Friday days plus on-call.
- Which certifications help?
- It depends on the role. OSHA 10 or 30 and NFPA 70E are required for commissioning technicians, and NETA helps for electrical work. For commissioning engineers and agents, the certifications are CxA, CCP or BCxP, and NETA also helps engineers. CompTIA A+ or Network+ helps data center technicians. NFPA 70E and EPA 608 help critical environment technicians. Some states require an electrical or stationary engineer license for critical facilities engineers.
- How do I move from technician to engineer?
- A commissioning technician moves to commissioning engineer, who writes and runs Level 3 to 5 tests. A critical environment technician moves to critical facilities engineer. The engineer writes the MOPs the technicians follow and leads maintenance. A data center technician can move to senior technician, critical environment technician or network technician.
Related
Operations pay ranges
Posted pay for critical facilities engineers, chief engineers and technicians, updated monthly.
Commissioning pay ranges
Posted pay for commissioning engineers, managers and agents from public job postings, updated monthly.
Hyperscaler jobs index
Open data center roles at Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Meta and Oracle, by state and role type.
Newsletter
Critical Path Search
A newsletter on hiring for data center builds. The first issue goes out with our first Data Center Commissioning Workforce Report.