Senior Data Center Engineer

Computacenter North America • Buffalo Grove

Buffalo Grove

220419-en_US

About the role

The Project Engineer provides end-to-end technical leadership for customer deployments, from requirements discovery and solution design through build, integration, validation, and technical closure. This is a customer-facing, consultative engineering role that translates customer requirements into accurate, executable technical designs and ensures completed solutions align with approved specifications and engineering standards. The Project Engineer serves as a key technical liaison among customers, project leadership, engineering teams, Integration Centers, Field Engineering, and other delivery functions. While the role is focused primarily on technical leadership and project delivery rather than traditional Field Engineering implementation or pre-sales, candidates must have strong hands-on knowledge of physical data center infrastructure. Rack-build and physical-architecture experience are key requirements, including an understanding of how data center solutions are physically assembled, cabled, integrated, tested, and validated.

Annual Salary Range: $110,000 - $140,000

What you'll be doing

  • Lead technical discovery to gather, validate, and document customer requirements, constraints, dependencies, and acceptance criteria.
  • Translate customer requirements into detailed, executable technical designs and serve as a primary technical contact throughout the deployment lifecycle.
  • Develop and maintain solution designs and engineering documentation, including rack designs/elevations, BOMs, cabling matrices, patch schedules, network diagrams, implementation workbooks, configuration specifications, and related technical documentation.
  • Apply strong knowledge of physical data center architecture, rack builds, rack integration, structured cabling, fiber/copper connectivity, equipment placement, cable routing, patching, port mappings, cross-connects, labeling, power, and grounding.
  • Provide technical direction and support to teams assembling, configuring, integrating, and testing customer solutions.
  • Review completed rack builds, configurations, test results, and technical deliverables against approved designs.
  • Participate in First Article Builds (FABs), Proofs of Concept (POCs), validation reviews, and other technical checkpoints as required.
  • Identify and resolve design discrepancies, omissions, integration issues, and technical questions discovered during build and deployment.
  • Lead technical closure by validating completed work against approved requirements and acceptance criteria, obtaining technical signoff where required, and ensuring final documentation accurately reflects the delivered solution.
  • Communicate technical status, risks, dependencies, decisions, and recommendations to customers and project leadership.
  • Partner closely with Project Managers, Program Managers, Field Engineering, Integration Centers, consultants, vendors, and customer technical teams throughout delivery.
  • Lead technical contributors through influence, establishing direction and driving accountability without direct reporting authority.

Core Technical Experience

Candidates should bring strong experience across physical data center infrastructure and project delivery, including:

  • Enterprise, colocation, hyperscale, or similar data center environments
  • Rack builds, rack integration, and physical data center architecture
  • Rack elevations and equipment layouts
  • Server, storage, and networking hardware
  • Structured cabling and physical connectivity
  • Copper and fiber infrastructure, including single-mode and multimode fiber
  • Cable routing, patching, port mappings, and cross-connects
  • Fiber plant design and documentation
  • Data center networking and connectivity
  • BOMs, cabling matrices, patch schedules, network diagrams, and technical documentation
  • Testing, validation, QA/QC, and technical closeout

What you have

  • Bachelor's degree in Engineering, Information Technology, Computer Science, or a related technical discipline, or equivalent relevant professional experience.
  • 5+ years of experience designing, configuring, implementing, or supporting enterprise technology environments.
  • Meaningful experience supporting enterprise, colocation, hyperscale, or similar data center environments.
  • Demonstrated rack-build and physical data center architecture experience.
  • Experience translating customer requirements into detailed technical designs and supporting solutions through build, validation, and acceptance.
  • Strong understanding of rack integration, structured cabling, fiber/copper infrastructure, physical connectivity, and data center infrastructure.
  • Ability to read, create, review, and work from rack elevations, BOMs, cable matrices, patch schedules, network diagrams, and related technical documentation.
  • Strong requirements-gathering, solution-design, technical-documentation, and configuration-management capabilities.
  • Ability to identify technical or design discrepancies, assess their impact, and drive issues through resolution.
  • Strong customer-facing communication skills with the ability to explain complex technical information to both technical and nontechnical audiences.
  • Ability to lead technical discussions and contributors without direct reporting authority.
  • Strong analytical, problem-solving, organizational, and follow-through skills.
  • Ability to manage multiple deployments, priorities, dependencies, and deadlines.
  • Ability to work regularly onsite at the assigned Integration Center and travel intermittently based on customer and business needs.
  • Must be legally eligible to work in the United States.

Preferred Qualifications

  • CCNA / CCNP or comparable networking certification
  • BICSI-related certifications such as BICSI Technician or RCDD
  • Fiber/cabling testing certifications, including Fluke/EXFO
  • Experience with Visio, AutoCAD, Revit, Smartsheet, MS Project, or similar engineering/project tools
  • Experience with enterprise data center networking technologies such as Cisco, Arista, Juniper, Palo Alto, or comparable platform

Why you should choose us

Freedom & trust

At Computacenter, you can really thrive by having the autonomy to do the right thing, for the long-term benefit of your customers in our unique can-do culture. Our Sales professionals are trusted with high- profile customers and manage large-scale, complex projects.

Your work. Your time

Our culture means that you’re free to decide how best to manage your time and workload. All that matters is that you’re delivering your best for our customers and that you pursue a healthy work/life balance.

Celebrating success

Our two-day annual Group Kick-off event is an international sales conference like no other! It’s a great opportunity to network with your peers from Europe, Asia, and beyond. Learn, be inspired, and help celebrate the success of your team and your colleagues.

Showing appreciation & having fun

Great performance is recognized, so too the willingness to help others. Our Bravo! and tenure recognition scheme schemes are just a taste of how we say thank you for all that you do. And when it comes to recognizing success, we love to celebrate. Our company and team events are legendary!

Open communication

Despite our size, we’re an open organization that doesn’t hide behind hierarchy. We communicate regularly, openly, and directly. For us, it’s about being straightforward, delivering, and doing the right thing. Essentially, we’re people dealing with people!

Inclusive workplace

People work best when they bring their whole selves to work; that’s why we see and value you as the individual you are. We take a genuine interest in you that extends beyond skills, knowledge, and experience. Our Employee Impact Groups champion best practice, celebrate diversity, and promote inclusion within our industry.

Personal development

We offer unlimited opportunities for your personal growth and development with a structure that offers clear paths for progression. Our people have advanced to become some of the most successful leaders across the global industry – and we’re proud of this.

Health & wellbeing

Our people are our greatest asset, and we’re passionate about supporting you in feeling good and staying healthy. We offer a comprehensive Employee Assistance Program, a ‘Be well’ app (powered by Humanoo), Mental Health First Aiders, wellbeing webinars, wellness fairs, and much more.

Tuition reimbursement

Interested in continuing your formal education or pursuing various certifications? Computacenter provides up to $5,250 in tuition reimbursement for full time employees. We value continuing education, and this assistance includes tuition, books, registration fees, and more.

Pension & financial security

Thinking ahead, planning for life’s uncertainties, or simply saving for a rainy day? For our people based in the US, we offer automatic enrollment onto our 401(k)-retirement plan with a company match. For our Canadian colleagues we offer enrollment onto a Registered Retirement Savings Plan provided by Canada Life where we’ll match 25% up to 6% of your base earnings. Irrespective of where you’re based, you’ll also have access to our financial advisors who can help you with your retirement planning needs.

Parental leave

If you’re expanding your family, you can utilize our parental leave program that provides twelve weeks of 100% paid leave for birthing parents, and two weeks of paid leave for non-birthing parents. Grow your family with peace of mind as you grow professionally with us.

Flexible benefits

We offer a wide range of benefits that you can tailor to fit you needs. In addition to great medical, dental, and vision coverage options, we also provide 100% company-paid life insurance, and short- and long-term disability insurance. Our easy to navigate employee benefits platform, you’ll have the opportunity to enroll in supplemental life insurance.

We’re a place where you can belong

We’re a place where you can belong

At Computacenter, people matter. We value what makes you, you, and believe everyone should feel comfortable being themselves at work. Here, you’ll be recognised for your contribution, supported to grow, and welcomed into a vibrant, collaborative culture where you can experience a genuine sense of belonging - because when you thrive, we thrive.

You’ll see this reflected in our recruitment process too. We aim to provide fair access to opportunities and an inclusive, barrier‑free experience. All that matters to us is that you share our vision and values and bring the skills and experience we need.

As a Disability Confident Committed employer, we offer a guaranteed interview scheme. If you opt in and meet the minimum criteria for the role, you’ll be guaranteed an interview, and we’re happy to support any reasonable adjustments. Please let us know when you apply.

Winning Together

At Computacenter, we have been writing success stories for more than 40 years. Today, we’re driving digital transformation with over 20,000 employees worldwide. We develop IT strategies, implement new technologies and manage complex infrastructures.

As a proud, independent partner to some of the world’s leading technology providers, our portfolio covers workplace, applications & data, cloud & data center, security, and networking. What’s the secret of our success? Quite simply, it’s our people.

The people who bring their unique skills and perspectives to a diverse and inclusive environment that enables them to reach their full potential.

Winning Together

We are an award-winning employer!