Position Overview This position is based remotely in the United States. Preferred in Denver, CO.The Navigator, Operations & Facilities, Global serves as a trusted advisor and discovery catalyst embedded within Vantage's Operations & Facilities function. This role acts as the critical bridge between business operations and AI possibilities, translating operational friction points into validated opportunities for AI-driven transformation. Rather than managing programs or building solutions, this Navigator discovers, validates, and prepares high-impact AI opportunities for rapid prototyping by the Accelerators team. Operating as an embedded AI business partner, this role focuses on AI-driven operational excellence across Vantage's global portfolio of operating data centers. This Navigator operates at the critical intersection of facility operations and intelligent technology, identifying opportunities where AI can enhance uptime reliability, optimize energy efficiency, predict equipment failures before they impact service, and streamline the complex operational workflows that keep mission-critical infrastructure running at peak performance. This position represents the front line of Vantage's AI transformation within Operations & Facilities, where strategic vision meets operational reality. Success requires equal parts business acumen, technical fluency, and the interpersonal skills to build trust across diverse stakeholders who may be skeptical, curious, or enthusiastic about AI's potential.
Essential Job Functions - Embed within Operations & Facilities teams to build trusted relationships with site directors, facility managers, critical environment engineers, and operations staff, becoming the go-to resource for AI opportunity identification across all aspects of data center operations.
- Conduct structured discovery sessions to map current state operational workflows across power management, cooling optimization, capacity planning, preventive maintenance, incident response, and environmental monitoring, identifying where AI can eliminate constraints and predict issues before they escalate.
- Translate operational challenges into preliminary AI use cases, assessing feasibility against available SCADA/BMS/DCIM data, sensor infrastructure, and organizational readiness for predictive and prescriptive operations.
- Validate AI opportunities through rapid assessment of business value potential within operational contexts, evaluating impact on uptime improvement, energy cost reduction, maintenance optimization, capacity utilization, and operational efficiency.
- Develop detailed intake documentation that captures operational context, data source inventory from BMS/DCIM/SCADA systems, integration requirements, alarm and threshold frameworks, and preliminary success criteria for handoff to the Accelerators team.
- Maintain deep knowledge of data center operational standards, critical infrastructure systems, redundancy architectures, and regulatory compliance requirements to ground AI opportunities in practical operational reality.
- Champion responsible AI principles in operational contexts, ensuring solutions proposed for mission-critical environments include appropriate human oversight, failsafe mechanisms, and risk thresholds.
- Build and nurture a champion network within Operations & Facilities, identifying site leads, shift supervisors, and critical environment engineers who can amplify AI adoption and provide operational feedback on prototypes.
- Monitor emerging AI capabilities for facility operations including predictive maintenance, energy optimization, anomaly detection, and autonomous operations to proactively identify new opportunity patterns.
Duties - Conduct regular listening tours across operating sites to understand evolving operational challenges, emerging facility requirements, and maintenance process improvements that could benefit from AI augmentation.
- Facilitate workshops with operations managers, facility engineers, and maintenance teams that envision how AI could transform facility management beyond basic automation and threshold alerting.
- Document opportunity assessments capturing operational impact, data dependencies on BMS/DCIM/SCADA platforms, integration complexity, risk factors specific to mission-critical environments, and resource implications.
- Collaborate with Safety and Compliance teams to ensure all identified opportunities in operational contexts align with safety regulations, environmental standards, and Vantage's operational procedures.
- Partner with Operations & Facilities leaders to develop success criteria focused on operational KPIs including uptime, PUE, maintenance costs, mean time to repair, and capacity utilization.
- Maintain awareness of AI initiatives across other functions to identify cross-functional synergies, particularly where operational data can inform construction improvements and vice versa.
- Contribute to methodology improvement, sharing insights from the unique constraints of 24/7 operational environments where solutions must not introduce risk to critical infrastructure.
- Translate AI concepts into operations and facilities management language that resonates with site teams, building AI literacy throughout the operational organization.
- Support change management by helping operations teams understand how AI tools will augment rather than replace their expertise, particularly in critical decision-making scenarios.
- Track discovery pipeline health and conversion rates within Operations & Facilities to inform prioritization and demonstrate intake function value.
- Handle additional duties as assigned by Management.
Job Requirements - Minimum 5-7 years overall work experience, with 3+ years in data center operations, critical facility management, or mission-critical infrastructure environments.
- Direct experience with data center operational systems including BMS, DCIM, SCADA, and environmental monitoring platforms, with understanding of how operational data flows inform facility management decisions.
- Strong foundation in data center operational workflows including power distribution, cooling management, capacity planning, preventive maintenance programs, and incident response procedures.
- Practical understanding of AI capabilities including predictive maintenance, anomaly detection, optimization algorithms, and computer vision as they apply to facility operations without requiring implementation expertise.
- Familiarity with data center industry standards, Tier classifications, redundancy architectures, and regulatory requirements that constrain operational practices.
- Demonstrated ability to translate complex operational processes into structured opportunity assessments that technical teams can act upon.
- Experience conducting discovery and requirements elicitation within 24/7 operational environments where availability is paramount and change management requires careful coordination.
- Proven capability to build credibility with site directors, operations managers, and field engineers, adapting communication to both strategic and tactical operational audiences.
- Track record of identifying operational improvements that delivered measurable gains in reliability, efficiency, or cost optimization.
- Comfort with ambiguity and ability to work effectively across multiple operating sites with different configurations, challenges, and team dynamics.
- Exceptional listening skills and genuine curiosity about operational workflows and the expertise that experienced facility teams bring to complex infrastructure management.
- Familiarity with responsible AI principles and risk management frameworks appropriate for mission-critical operational environments.
- Travel required is expected to be 10% for site visits and relationship building across Vantage's operating portfolio.
Physical Demands and Special Requirements The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.
While performing the duties of this job, the employee is occasionally required to stand; walk; sit; use hands to handle, or feel objects; reach with hands and arms; climb stairs; balance; stoop or kneel; talk and hear. The employee must occasionally lift and/or move up to 25 pounds.
Additional Details - Salary Range: $135,000 - 140,000 Base + Bonus (this range is based on Colorado market data and may vary in other locations)
- This position is eligible for company benefits including but not limited to medical, dental, and vision coverage, life and AD&D, short and long-term disability coverage, paid time off, employee assistance, participation in a 401k program that includes company match, and many other additional voluntary benefits.
- Compensation for the role will depend on a number of factors, including your qualifications, skills, competencies, and experience and may fall outside of the range shown.
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