October 2026 edition
Data center hiring index
2,314 open U.S. data center roles at Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Meta and Oracle, 23 tracked projects under construction and 32 stalled or cancelled. These are this month's figures, each with its base and the date it was read. We publish a new edition on the first of each month.
By Czarina Tabayoyong, Founder, Critical Path Hiring. Former Amazon, AWS and Google recruiter.
Last reviewed · First published · Next update
Published on the first of each month.
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One email each time this page is refreshed, with what changed.
Figures
| Figure | October 2026 | Change | Base | Read |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Open data center roles at five hyperscalers | 2,314 | First edition | U.S. roles on the careers sites of Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Meta and Oracle | October 25, 2026 |
| Of those, commissioning roles | 77 | First edition | roles with commissioning in the title | October 25, 2026 |
| Projects under construction | 23 | First edition | of 115 tracked projects in nine markets | October 29, 2026 |
| Projects approved, not yet building | 33 | First edition | of 115 tracked projects | October 29, 2026 |
| Stated capacity under construction | 5,204 MW | First edition | 13 of 23 projects under construction state a capacity | October 29, 2026 |
| Projects stalled or cancelled | 32 | First edition | of 115 tracked projects | October 29, 2026 |
| Delivery targets with commissioning in Q4 2026 | 7 | First edition | targets dated Q4 2026 or up to two quarters later, so their commissioning falls in Q4 2026, across 6 markets | October 29, 2026 |
| Commissioning technician posted pay | $38 to $60/hr | First edition | median low and high ends of 5 hourly postings, from 48 commissioning postings read | October 23, 2026 |
| Commissioning engineer posted pay | $101K to $159K | First edition | median low and high ends of 16 annual postings | October 23, 2026 |
| Data center technician posted pay | $35 to $58/hr | First edition | median low and high ends of 5 hourly postings, from 15 operations postings read | October 26, 2026 |
| Chief engineer posted pay | $110K to $166K | First edition | median low and high ends of 5 annual postings | October 26, 2026 |
This is the first edition. From the November edition on, the change column compares each figure with the month before.
Method
Every figure comes from one of our monthly pages, linked in the table, and is read the same way each month. Hyperscaler roles are counted on each company's own careers site on the 25th. Project counts and stated capacity come from our trackers of nine U.S. markets, refreshed on the 28th. Posted pay is the median of the low and high ends of the postings we read that month, shown only where at least five postings state pay. Nothing is estimated, weighted or combined into a score.
A count can change because the underlying number changed or because we added projects or postings we found that month. Each source page lists what changed in its refresh. Data downloads are on the tracker hub.
Questions
What is the Data Center Hiring Index?
A set of 11 U.S. data center hiring figures we publish on the first of each month. Each figure is a count or a posted pay range from one of our monthly datasets, shown with its base and the date it was read. We do not combine them into a single score.
How many data center jobs are the hyperscalers hiring for?
2,314 open U.S. data center roles on the careers sites of Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Meta and Oracle on October 25, 2026, 77 of them with commissioning in the title.
What do data center commissioning technicians get paid?
Posted pay ran $38 to $60/hr in our October 2026 reading: the median low and high ends of 5 hourly postings, from 48 commissioning postings read.
Related
Hyperscaler jobs index
Open data center roles at Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Meta and Oracle, by state and role type.
State of data center hiring
The nine-market picture in one briefing: pipeline, blocked capacity and hiring runway.
Operations pay ranges
Posted pay for critical facilities engineers, chief engineers and technicians, updated monthly.
Hiring call
Book a hiring call and we'll talk through which roles your build needs and when to bring them on.
Czarina Tabayoyong
Founder and principal recruiter, Critical Path Hiring. Czarina recruits commissioning, MEP, power and critical facilities people for data center builds. She previously recruited cloud and data center architecture talent at AWS Professional Services, and PMO and project delivery talent for hyperscale data center campuses in Texas and Virginia.