Data Center Operations Tower Director

Overview

Introduction:

Veterans and the clinicians who care for them count on Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) systems being available every hour of every day, and those systems live in VA data centers and telecommunication spaces across the country. As our Data Center Operations Tower Director, you’ll lead the engineers and operations teams that keep those facilities running, documented, and ready for what comes next. You’ll run around-the-clock operations at VA’s enterprise data centers, guide the engineering that modernizes them, and help retire aging systems before they become a risk. You’ll also lead the hands-on side of infrastructure optimization, from power and cooling to automation and disaster recovery testing. If you take pride in reliable operations and sound engineering, and you want to provide exceptional service for those who served, we’d like to talk with you.

Position Summary:

The Data Center Operations Tower Director is the single contractor-side leader accountable for Data Center Operations under the contract, including Data Center and Cloud Engineering (DCCE) and Data Center Management and Operations, and owns their deliverables and acceptable quality levels (AQLs). This leader also leads the engineering side of Infrastructure Optimization, which feeds the Strategic Infrastructure Optimization Plan owned by the Financial Operations Tower Director.

This leader must drive collaboration across its peers in Financial Operations, Business Office Integration, and Service Delivery Integration, because the service providers, customers, data, and hand-offs are shared. The role brings engineering, operations, and modernization together, well beyond facility management.

The Data Center Operations Tower Director leads:

• 24/7/365 operations, monitoring, and incident response at Enterprise and Regional Data Centers, starting with Austin and Philadelphia, with options of additional sites.
• Data Center Infrastructure Management (DCIM) as the single source of truth for assets, layouts, and capacity.
• Platform infrastructure decommissioning and lifecycle modernization across systems.
• Onsite assessments and recommendations for data centers and telecommunication spaces.
• Design reviews and 2D and 3D design drawings across Telecommunications, Electrical, Architectural, and Mechanical (TEAM) disciplines.
• Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) airflow and thermal simulation.
• Standards, handbooks, technical guidance, and training materials.
• Configuration management materials, including cable schedules, network maps, power panel schedules, and labeling.
• Infrastructure assessments and baselines, power and cooling optimization, and energy efficiency reporting.
• Disaster recovery testing, infrastructure risk management, and compliance audits.
• Automation for configuration, patching, and monitoring, quarterly technology refresh recommendations, and emerging technology pilots.

The Director runs engineering and operations as one service that keeps VA’s data centers available, secure, and ready to modernize, measured against the contract’s performance standards. All work stays within the Government’s authority over approvals, policy, prioritization, and risk acceptance.

At TISTA, you’ll do meaningful, mission‑driven work that improves lives alongside teammates you trust and leaders who are transparent and supportive. We invest in your learning and internal mobility so you can build a career that keeps advancing. We’re proud to serve and hire Veterans, and we put people first in everything we do.

TISTA associates enjoy above Industry Healthcare Benefits, Remote Working Options, Paid Time Off, Training/Certification opportunities, Healthcare Savings Account & Flexible Savings Account, Paid Life Insurance, Short-term & Long-term Disability, 401K Match, Tuition Reimbursement, Employee Assistance Program, Paid Holidays, Military Leave, and much more!

Responsibilities

Data Center Operations Tower Director Performance Expectations:

Establish one operating plan, staffing model, shift structure, and management rhythm across engineering and operations.

Keep data centers and the FIR application available around the clock, meeting the contract’s uptime standards.

Resolve incidents within priority-based response times, complete all scheduled preventive maintenance, and document every shift handover.

Stand up the technical debt Operational Tracking System and move legacy systems to supported platforms before end of support.

Keep DCIM records, configuration management materials, and asset ownership mapping accurate and current.

Deliver assessments, design reviews, and design drawings with a high degree of accuracy and with minimal to zero rework.

Submit every deliverable complete, accurate, on time, and ready for Government review, and meet each acceptable quality level.

Maintain clear boundaries between contractor recommendations and Government decision, approval, and risk-acceptance authority.

Roles and Responsibilities:

• Serve as the principal contractor-side leader for Data Center Operations delivery and outcomes.
• In coordination with the Program Management Office (PMO), maintain the integrated schedule, deliverable register, risk and issue register, action log, staffing plan, and quality controls for these functions.
• Lead 24/7/365 data center operations: installing, racking, cabling, and decommissioning equipment; managing power and environmental systems; monitoring; incident response and root cause analysis; preventive maintenance and patching; after-hours onsite support; and shift transitions. Follow ITIL-aligned practices, VA Handbooks 6500 and 7002 for asset disposal, and ISO 27001 and TIA-942 standards.
• Lead environmental monitoring and energy efficiency across up to eight data centers, including temperature, humidity, and Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE), with weekly uptime and energy reports.
• Maintain DCIM as the single source of truth: inventories, asset accountability, ownership and criticality mapping, diagrams and floor layouts, and capacity planning. Run the ServiceNow (or equivalent) helpdesk for asset changes, service requests, and incidents, and manage DCIM projects and knowledge management in SharePoint and Power BI.
• Lead platform infrastructure decommissioning and lifecycle modernization: track technical debt across VA’s systems, prioritize upgrades by vulnerability, outage impact, leadership direction, and migration complexity, help customers plan and complete Windows and Linux migrations, and analyze the business cost of technical debt.
• Direct Data Center and Cloud Engineering, including onsite assessment and recommendation reports, CFD simulations, milestone design reviews from concept through issued-for-construction, and 2D and 3D design drawings.
• Oversee standards, handbooks, technical briefs, bulletins, videos, and online courses that meet Section 508, WCAG 2.0, and PDF/UA accessibility requirements.
• Maintain configuration management materials for the built environment, including cable schedules, layout and elevation maps, network maps, power panel schedules, a standard labeling schema, and DCIM entries for four colocation data centers.
• Operate and enhance a custom application), including availability, performance, release management, weekly data warehouse loads, and security: Authorization to Operate (ATO), Plan of Action and Milestones (POA&M) remediation, patching, and Continuous Readiness in Information Security Program (CRISP) compliance.
• Lead the engineering side of infrastructure optimization: infrastructure assessments and baselines, the asset inventory and lifecycle register, power, cooling, and resource utilization improvements, disaster recovery test plans and after-action reports, compliance audits and POA&M tracking, automation for configuration, patching, and monitoring, quarterly technology refresh recommendations, and emerging technology pilots.
• Partner with other Tower Directors on shared hand-offs: engineering inputs and asset lifecycle data for the Strategic Infrastructure Optimization Plan, data center projects and workload placement, and data center performance reporting in the SDI Centralized Hub.
• Present decision-ready status, performance trends, risks, and recommendations to executive stakeholders, and escalate risks to availability, security, or customer commitments early.
• Protect sensitive information, keep records audit-ready, and ensure the team works within approved contractual and governance boundaries.

Qualifications

Required Qualifications:

• At least 10 years of experience in data center operations, infrastructure engineering, or enterprise IT operations, including 5 years leading multidisciplinary engineering and operations teams in 24/7 environments.
• Hands-on knowledge of data center infrastructure, including servers, network, storage, structured cabling, power systems, cooling, and environmental monitoring.
• Experience with DCIM platforms and IT service management (ITSM) tools such as ServiceNow, including ITIL-aligned incident, change, and asset management.
• Experience leading large-scale lifecycle modernization, migration, or decommissioning programs, including Windows and Linux platform migrations.
• Experience operating systems under Federal security requirements, including ATO, POA&M remediation, and patch compliance.
• Strong executive communication. Must be well-written and comfortable in front of large audiences.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience working within the Department of Veterans Affairs.
• Experience in a large Federal, healthcare, regulated, or mission-critical infrastructure environment.
• Master’s degree in engineering, information technology, or a related field.
• BICSI Registered Communications Distribution Designer (RCDD), Uptime Institute, Certified Data Center Professional (CDCP), or comparable data center certifications.
• Experience with Computational Flow.
• Experience with disaster recovery testing and infrastructure automation using PowerShell, Python, or orchestration tools.
• Experience leading Government-facing deliverables, performance standards, and corrective-action programs.
• Experience in an outcomes-based environment, comfortable transforming vague parameters into clear guidelines.
• Experience applying AI and machine learning to predictive maintenance or capacity forecasting is desirable.

Education:

• Bachelor’s degree in engineering, information technology, computer science, or a related field. Sixteen years of relevant experience may substitute for a degree.

Clearance:

• Must be able to obtain and maintain the personnel suitability, credentials, system access, and training required per a Tier 4 / High Risk clearance.

Location:

• Rockville, MD or Austin, TX.
• Onsite Requirements: In office a minimum of 2 days a week.
• Travel: As required per customer mission needs.

Pay Range:

• The suggested pay for this position ranges from $150,546 to $225,875.
• The actual salary offer will carefully consider a wide range of factors, including your skills, qualifications, experience, and location.
• Also, certain positions are eligible for additional forms of compensation, such as bonuses.
• TISTA associates are eligible to participate in our comprehensive benefits plan! More information can be found here: https://tistatech.com/working-at-tista/