THE POSITION:The Vice President, Electrical Engineering is responsible for the leadership, technical direction, organizational development, and execution of the Electrical Engineering function. Reporting to the SVP of Engineering, this role provides dedicated leadership for the Electrical Engineering organization while partnering closely with Mechanical Engineering, Technology, Controls, Development, Construction, Operations, Procurement, and other key stakeholders.
The VP, Electrical Engineering serves as the senior electrical engineering leader responsible for ensuring electrical infrastructure designs are safe, reliable, scalable, cost-effective, constructible, and aligned with company standards, client requirements, project objectives, and operational needs.
This position combines strong technical leadership with organizational and people leadership. The VP is accountable not only for electrical engineering quality and technical decisions, but also for building and developing the Electrical Engineering team, managing resources and priorities, driving standardization, supporting project delivery, and establishing clear accountability across the electrical discipline.
The VP will also serve as a senior client-facing technical representative for Electrical Engineering and must be capable of independently leading technical discussions with clients, communicating complex engineering concepts and design decisions, understanding client requirements, and resolving technical issues while appropriately balancing client expectations with company standards, project requirements, and business objectives. The responsibilities include, but are not limited to:
Organizational & People Leadership - Lead the Electrical Engineering organization and provide clear accountability, direction, priorities, and expectations across the team.
- Manage, mentor, and develop electrical engineering leaders and individual contributors.
- Establish organizational structure, roles, responsibilities, and decision-making authority appropriate to the scale and needs of the business.
- Develop technical and leadership capabilities within the Electrical Engineering team and establish succession plans for critical roles.
- Conduct resource and capacity planning based on the project pipeline, workload, and business priorities.
- Identify staffing needs and lead recruiting, onboarding, development, and retention of electrical engineering talent.
- Establish annual objectives and performance expectations aligned with Engineering and company priorities.
- Build a culture of technical excellence, accountability, collaboration, continuous improvement, and ownership.
Electrical Engineering Leadership - Serve as the senior discipline leader for electrical engineering and provide technical direction across the project portfolio.
- Provide oversight of electrical infrastructure architecture, including utility interfaces, substations, medium- and low-voltage distribution, generators, UPS systems, energy storage where applicable, grounding, protection, controls interfaces, and associated critical electrical infrastructure.
- Provide leadership and technical guidance for major electrical design decisions, deviations, risks, and escalations.
- Ensure electrical designs appropriately address reliability, redundancy, maintainability, safety, constructability, operability, cost, and schedule.
- Establish appropriate technical review and approval processes for electrical engineering deliverables.
- Ensure electrical engineering decisions are documented, communicated, and implemented consistently across projects.
- Provide senior-level technical support for complex project issues and significant field or operational challenges.
Client & External Engagement - Serve as a senior client-facing technical representative for Electrical Engineering.
- Lead client meetings, technical workshops, design reviews, and engineering alignment sessions.
- Present and clearly communicate electrical system architecture, basis of design, technical requirements, design decisions, risks, deviations, and proposed solutions to clients.
- Understand and evaluate client technical requirements and ensure they are appropriately incorporated into project designs.
- Work directly with clients to resolve technical differences while maintaining alignment with company standards, project requirements, commercial commitments, and operational objectives.
- Provide technical leadership during client due diligence, project development, design, construction, commissioning, and other project phases as required.
- Develop trusted relationships with client engineering and leadership teams and serve as a primary escalation point for significant electrical engineering matters.
- Represent the company professionally with clients, utilities, engineering consultants, equipment manufacturers, contractors, and other external stakeholders.
- Escalate significant technical, commercial, or relationship risks to the SVP of Engineering and other leadership as appropriate.
Standards & Technical Governance - Own and maintain electrical engineering design standards, criteria, specifications, and technical requirements.
- Drive standardization and repeatability while allowing appropriate flexibility for site, utility, jurisdictional, client, and project-specific requirements.
- Lead evaluation and implementation of new electrical technologies, equipment, architectures, and design approaches.
- Establish governance for deviations from established electrical standards and ensure appropriate technical and business evaluation.
- Incorporate lessons learned from design, construction, commissioning, and operations into future standards and designs.
- Partner with other Engineering disciplines to ensure coordinated and integrated design requirements.
- Maintain awareness of applicable codes, regulations, industry standards, utility requirements, and emerging industry practices.
Project & Portfolio Execution - Provide electrical engineering leadership across projects from early development and conceptual design through design, procurement, construction, commissioning, and turnover to Operations.
- Establish priorities and allocate Electrical Engineering resources across the portfolio based on business and project requirements.
- Monitor electrical engineering deliverables, technical decisions, risks, and critical milestones.
- Ensure timely resolution of electrical engineering issues that could impact project cost, schedule, quality, reliability, or operations.
- Support project teams in evaluating technical alternatives and balancing engineering requirements with commercial and schedule considerations.
- Participate in design reviews and project governance at appropriate project stages.
- Ensure appropriate electrical engineering support is provided during construction, commissioning, energization, and turnover.
Cross-Functional Leadership - Partner closely with Mechanical Engineering, Technology, and Controls leadership under the SVP of Engineering to ensure integrated multidisciplinary engineering solutions.
- Collaborate with Development, Construction, Operations, Procurement, Commercial, and other business functions throughout the project lifecycle.
- Support Procurement in technical evaluations, equipment strategies, supplier qualification, and major electrical equipment decisions.
- Partner with Construction and Commissioning teams to address constructability, installation, testing, energization, and commissioning requirements.
- Engage Operations to ensure designs support long-term reliability, maintainability, safety, and operational requirements.
- Develop productive relationships with utilities, consultants, engineering partners, equipment manufacturers, and other external stakeholders.
Strategy & Continuous Improvement - Support the SVP of Engineering in developing and executing the overall Engineering strategy.
- Develop and execute the Electrical Engineering functional strategy aligned with business growth and portfolio requirements.
- Identify opportunities to improve design efficiency, standardization, quality, cost, schedule, reliability, and engineering productivity.
- Evaluate emerging technologies and industry developments relevant to critical electrical infrastructure.
- Establish lessons-learned processes and ensure findings are incorporated into standards and future projects.
- Develop appropriate engineering metrics and KPIs to measure Electrical Engineering performance and organizational effectiveness.
THE DETAILS:- Remote
- Travel: 30% minimum
- Must be eligible to work in the United States
- Must pass a comprehensive drug and background screening
MUST HAVE QUALIFICATIONS:- Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering from an accredited institution; advanced degree preferred.
- Professional Engineer (PE) license required.
- Minimum of 15 years of progressive electrical engineering experience, with significant experience in data center, mission-critical, utility, power, industrial, or similarly complex electrical infrastructure.
- Demonstrated progression into senior engineering leadership roles with responsibility for teams, technical decisions, project execution, and organizational development.
- Significant experience leading and developing engineering organizations, including managers, senior engineers, and technical professionals.
- Strong technical knowledge of mission-critical electrical infrastructure.
- Experience with medium- and low-voltage distribution systems, utility interfaces, substations, transformers, generators, UPS systems, protection systems, grounding, and associated electrical infrastructure.
- Strong understanding of electrical system reliability, redundancy, maintainability, safety, constructability, and operational requirements.
- Experience developing and implementing engineering standards, specifications, design criteria, and technical governance processes.
- Demonstrated ability to evaluate complex technical issues and make sound decisions considering technical, commercial, schedule, and operational impacts.
- Experience working across the full project lifecycle, including development, design, procurement, construction, commissioning, and operations.
- Demonstrated experience independently leading client-facing technical meetings, design reviews, technical workshops, and executive-level engineering discussions.
- Ability to independently represent the company and Electrical Engineering organization with sophisticated technical clients and external stakeholders.
- Strong executive communication, organizational leadership, collaboration, negotiation, and stakeholder-management skills.
- Ability to communicate complex technical matters effectively to engineering teams, executive leadership, clients, and non-technical stakeholders.
Preferred Experience - Direct experience within the data center and mission-critical infrastructure industry.
- Experience delivering large-scale, high-capacity electrical infrastructure programs across multiple projects or markets.
- Experience with utility interconnection and large-scale power-delivery requirements.
- Experience working with major electrical equipment manufacturers, engineering consultants, contractors, utilities, and commissioning organizations.
- Experience supporting hyperscale or other sophisticated data center clients and translating client technical requirements into scalable infrastructure solutions.
Key Performance Indicators Success in this role will be evaluated based on measurable organizational and execution outcomes, including:
- Electrical Engineering deliverables completed in accordance with committed project milestones.
- Timely closure of critical electrical technical decisions, risks, and escalations.
- Quality of electrical engineering deliverables and reduction of avoidable design-related rework.
- Effective resource and capacity planning across the project portfolio.
- Clear accountability and performance expectations throughout the Electrical Engineering organization.
- Employee development, retention, succession planning, and growth of internal technical capabilities.
- Development, maintenance, and consistent application of electrical engineering standards.
- Effective coordination and integration with Mechanical Engineering, Technology, Controls, Construction, Development, Operations, and Procurement.
- Effective technical engagement with clients and timely resolution of client-driven technical requirements, decisions, and escalations.
- Identification and implementation of measurable improvements in design quality, cost, schedule, reliability, and engineering efficiency.
Compensation Range: $259,
