Phased Delivery SME; Staff Engineer

About the role:

We are building next-generation, gigawatt-scale AI data centers worldwide. These campuses are delivered in overlapping phases, often with active construction, live infrastructure turn-up, commissioning, IT deployment, and customer readiness occurring simultaneously across different parts of the same site.

The Phased Delivery SME is a senior, strategic operator responsible for designing and governing the end-to-end phased delivery model that brings these campuses online safely, predictably, and at speed. This person is the connective tissue across development, design, construction, controls, commissioning, facilities operations, network and IT deployment, liquid cooling infrastructure, and first-workload readiness.

In this role, you will set the standard for how partially complete sites transition from construction zones into operational AI capacity. You will create the frameworks, decision models, readiness gates, handoff criteria, risk controls, and cross-functional execution mechanisms needed to deliver data halls, utility capacity, grey space, white space, and liquid-cooled compute environments in tightly sequenced waves.

This role requires deep experience operating in ambiguity, leading across functions without direct authority, and driving execution in environments where the site is simultaneously a construction project, a commissioning program, and a live production operation.

What Youll Do

Phased Delivery Strategy and Governance

• Define and own the enterprise phased delivery methodology for large-scale AI data center campuses.
• Establish the operating model for delivering sites in progressive stages, from early utility readiness and shell completion through grey space fit-out, commissioning, IT installation, and customer workload activation.
• Build standardized phase definitions, entry/exit criteria, handoff checkpoints, go/no-go gates, and risk escalation paths.
• Create the governance model that aligns construction progress, infrastructure readiness, safety, operations, and customer launch commitments.

Cross-Functional Orchestration

• Serve as the senior integrator across real estate development, design, construction, commissioning, facilities engineering, network deployment, server deployment, supply chain, security, EH&S, and operations.
• Drive coordination across multiple workstreams that may be at different maturity levels within the same campus.
• Ensure dependencies between civil, structural, MEP, controls, cooling, power, network, and compute deployment are fully understood and actively managed.
• Lead executive-level alignment on sequencing decisions, constraints, tradeoffs, and recovery plans.

Site Readiness and Handover Excellence

• Develop and institutionalize site readiness frameworks for phased turnover of buildings, yards, utility plants, data halls, grey space, and supporting operational areas.
• Define operational acceptance criteria for spaces transitioning from construction control to facilities and IT control.
• Ensure temporary conditions, shared systems, incomplete scope areas, and construction adjacency risks are clearly identified and managed.
• Partner with commissioning and operations leaders to enable safe turnover of partially completed environments without compromising future-phase execution.

AI Infrastructure and Liquid Cooling Readiness

• Integrate liquid cooling readiness requirements into the phased delivery strategy, including CDU readiness, fluid distribution, controls integration, leak detection, commissioning dependencies, and operational supportability.
• Ensure compute deployment readiness is aligned to mechanical, electrical, controls, and networking milestones.
• Anticipate and resolve issues unique to high-density AI environments, including power ramp strategy, thermal risk, redundancy staging, and partial-system operations.

Execution Risk, Controls, and Recovery

• Identify delivery, operational, safety, and customer risks introduced by phased occupancy and partial turnover models.
• Build mitigation strategies for shared infrastructure, temporary power/cooling configurations, construction interference, access controls, and incomplete resiliency states.
• Lead structured readiness reviews, phase risk assessments, and recovery planning when milestones drift or dependencies break.
• Provide executive visibility into key risks, constraints, and decision points across phases.

Standards, Tools, and Continuous Improvement

• Develop playbooks, templates, checklists, RACI models, dashboards, and lessons-learned mechanisms for repeatable global deployment.
• Standardize how teams plan around mixed-mode sites where active construction and production operations coexist.
• Use field feedback to continuously improve the phased delivery model for speed, safety, and predictability.
• Mentor senior program, construction, and operations leaders on phased delivery best practices.

Who You Are:

• 15+ years of experience in data center delivery, mission-critical infrastructure, large capital projects, technical program management, commissioning, or operations leadership.
• Deep experience delivering complex facilities in phased, partially complete, or live-site conditions.
• A systems thinker who sees the whole site, not just one discipline, and understands the business impact of early, on-time, and delayed compute.
• Dissatisfied with the status quo, motivated to deliver faster, and with greater reliability and repeatability
• Expert-level understanding of mission-critical MEP systems, commissioning, integrated systems testing, and turnover readiness.
• Relentless about sequencing, dependencies, and operational readiness.
• Comfortable making hard tradeoff calls when speed, risk, and quality are in tension.
• Highly respected by construction, engineering, commissioning, and operations teams alike.
• Proven ability to build scalable delivery patterns.

Required Qualifications

• Experience coordinating construction, facilities, and IT deployment workstreams in highly interdependent environments.
• Demonstrated success leading cross-functional execution for large, high-risk, high-visibility programs.
• Strong executive communication skills with the ability to simplify complex dependencies and drive decisions.
• Proven ability to operate as a senior individual contributor and influence across organizational boundaries.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with hyperscale, colocation, or AI/HPC data center deployments.
• Experience with liquid cooling infrastructure and high-density compute environments.
• Familiarity with phased occupancy, temporary operations, energization sequencing, and partial-system commissioning.
• Experience developing enterprise standards, playbooks, or delivery governance frameworks across multiple regions.
• Background in construction management, critical facilities operations, commissioning, mechanical/electrical engineering, or technical infrastructure program leadership.
• Experience working on global programs with multiple simultaneous site launches.

Wondering if youre a good fit? We believe in investing in our people, and value candidates who can bring their own diversified experiences to our teams even if you aren't a 100% skill or experience match. Here are a few qualities weve found compatible with our team. If some of this describes you, wed love to talk.

• You love to challenge the status quo and deliver faster, with greater reliability and repeatability.
• Youre curious about being a systems thinker who sees the whole site, not just one discipline, and understands the business impact of compute delivery.
• Youre an expert in mission-critical MEP systems, commissioning, integrated systems testing, and turnover readiness.

Why CoreWeave?

At CoreWeave, we work hard, have fun, and move fast! Were in an exciting stage of hyper-growth that you will not want to miss out on. Were not afraid of a little chaos, and were constantly learning. Our team cares deeply about how we build our product and how we work together, which is represented through our core values:

• Be Curious at Your Core
• Act Like an Owner
• Empower Employees
• Deliver Best-in-Class Client Experiences
• Achieve More Together

We support and encourage an entrepreneurial outlook and independent thinking. We foster an environment that encourages collaboration and enables the development of innovative solutions to complex problems. As we get set for takeoff, the organization's growth opportunities are constantly expanding. You will be surrounded by some of the best talent in the industry, who will want to learn from you, too. Come join us!

The base salary range for this role is $117,000 to $237,000. The starting salary will be determined based on job-related knowledge, skills, experience, and market location. We strive for both market alignment and internal equity when determining compensation. In addition to base salary, our total rewards package includes a discretionary bonus, equity awards, and a comprehensive benefits program (all based on eligibility).