Position Title: Subregional Data Center Design Lead

Location: Dallas, TX; Ashburn, VA

Your role

The Subregional Design Lead plays a pivotal role within the Design, Engineering & Construction (DE&C) organization, serving as the technical authority and strategic coordinator for data center design initiatives across the subregion. You will drive the implementation of standardized design, oversee design execution from concept to commissioning, and ensure alignment with Global and Regional Design Engineering Guidelines. You will collaborate extensively with internal stakeholders—including Construction, Pre-Construction, Portfolio Management, Solutions Engineering, Operations, and Global DE&C teams—as well as external consultants, contractors, vendors, and customers. In this role, you'll mentor design managers, guide consultant teams, and provide technical leadership that ensures projects meet quality, budget, schedule, and governance expectations.

What you’ll do

• Provide strategic oversight, mentorship, and performance management for design managers across the subregion, including resource balancing and workstream optimization.
• Lead technical coordination across internal and external stakeholders—consultants, vendors, permitting authorities, contractors, A/E teams, commissioning agents, and customers.
• Ensure full compliance with Global & Regional Design Engineering Guidelines, escalate deviations, and maintain alignment with DLR’s gating, permitting, and governance processes.
• Oversee consultant engagement including issuing RFPs, leveling bids, selecting firms, and managing design deliverables, scope demarcation, and schedule alignment with TES milestones.
• Review and approve key design documentation including Basis of Design, drawings, submittals, technical studies, commissioning plans, and OFCI equipment packages.
• Serve as a technical resource throughout construction and commissioning, attending OAC meetings, site walks, Level 4/5 testing, and coordinating technical responses to RFI escalations.
• Manage project reporting, including PIDs, monthly reports, budget reviews, contract changes, and technical input to pipeline, insurance, and corporate reporting processes.
• Chair or support DLR gating milestones (G0–G2), ensuring alignment across Pre-Con, Construction, Portfolio Management, and other functional partners.
• Drive continuous improvement by leading lessons-learned reviews, standards evolution initiatives, cross-functional design reviews, and the adoption of new tools or design innovations (e.g., BIM, DfMA).
• Provide technical support for Operations, Sales Engineering, due diligence, customer feasibility reviews, and other ad hoc business needs related to design, innovation, or major incidents.

What you’ll need

• 10+ years of mission-critical building delivery experience, ideally in multi-disciplinary design environments or data center design.
• Strong technical foundation in one or more CSA or MEPH engineering disciplines, with experience spanning full project lifecycle—from planning and design through permitting, construction, and commissioning.
• Familiarity with owner-operator development processes, gating, change control, contractual interfaces, and multi-stakeholder coordination.
• Ability to confidently explain, defend, and negotiate complex technical decisions with senior internal and external stakeholders.
• Experience managing consultants, contractors, commissioning firms, utilities, and other specialist partners.
• Proven ability to interpret and enforce design standards, evaluate proposals, assess compliance, and identify key issues across multiple disciplines.
• High-level problem solving, decision making, and the ability to navigate project pressures around cost, risk, schedule, and quality.
• Strong communication skills with the ability to tailor complex technical concepts to both technical and non-technical audiences.
• Highly organized, process-oriented, pragmatic, and able to operate effectively in fast-paced, high-pressure environments.
• Bachelor’s degree in engineering or architecture preferred.

A bit about us

Digital Realty brings companies and data together by delivering the full spectrum of data center, colocation and interconnection solutions. PlatformDIGITAL®, the company’s global data center platform, provides customers with a secure data meeting place and a proven Pervasive Datacenter Architecture (PDx®) solution methodology for powering innovation and efficiently managing Data Gravity challenges. Digital Realty gives its customers access to the connected data communities that matter to them with a global data center footprint of 300+ facilities in 50+ metros across 25+ countries on six continents.

To learn more about Digital Realty, please visit digitalrealty.com or follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter.

What we can offer you

Our rapidly evolving business sector offers the opportunity to be part of a courageous and passionate team who work together to understand and meet the changing needs of our global customers.

Join us and you’ll be part of a supportive and inclusive environment where you can bring your whole self to work. As part of our team, you’ll get to work with people from different business areas, challenge the way we do things and put your ideas into action. We’ll also give you plenty of development opportunities so you can build a rewarding and successful career with us.

Apply today, take charge of your career and grow your talents with us.

Health and Safety

Safety isn't just a priority here at Digital; it's critical to everything we do. Safeguarding lives, protecting assets, and securing data aren't just ideals - they're essential pillars of our commitment to excellence for our people, our partners and our customers. We have a culture of care where every member of Team Digital embraces a relentless pursuit of working safely across Digital Realty. Together we are Safely Powering Progress.

Our Compensation Philosophy

Digital Realty offers its employees a highly competitive compensation package, excellent benefits, and an environment that recognizes and rewards your contributions. Central to our compensation philosophy is rewarding our employees for achieving the values and objectives aligned to the company's overall goals and values.

---

Help shape the future of world-class digital infrastructure. As a Subregional Design Lead, you’ll guide the design vision for high-performance data centers, driving technical excellence, standardization, and innovation across multi-country projects. This is a strategic, high-impact role where you’ll mentor design managers, influence major design decisions, and ensure every project meets our uncompromising standards for quality, safety, speed, and technical rigor.