Manager, R&D Data Center

This is an incredible opportunity to be part of a company that has been at the forefront of AI and high-performance data storage innovation for over two decades. DDN Storage is a global market leader renowned for powering many of the world's most demanding AI data centers, in industries ranging from life sciences and healthcare to financial services, autonomous cars, Government, academia, research and manufacturing.

"DDN's A3I solutions are transforming the landscape of AI infrastructure." - IDC

"The real differentiator is DDN. I never hesitate to recommend DDN. DDN is the de facto name for AI Storage in high performance environments" - ~ Marc Hamilton VP, Solutions Architecture & Engineering | NVIDIA

DDN Storage is the global leader in AI and multi-cloud data management at scale. Our cutting-edge storage and data management solutions are designed to accelerate AI workloads, enabling organizations to extract maximum value from their data. With a proven track record of performance, reliability, and scalability, DDN Storage empowers businesses to tackle the most challenging AI and data-intensive workloads with confidence.

Our success is driven by our unwavering commitment to innovation, customer-centricity, and a team of passionate professionals who bring their expertise and dedication to every project. This is a chance to make a significant impact at a company that is shaping the future of AI and data management.

Our commitment to innovation, customer success, and market leadership makes this an exciting and rewarding role for a driven professional looking to make a lasting impact in the world of AI and data storage.

DDN is looking for a technically "hands on" Datacenter leader to provide direction and contribute alongside other technical team members in building and maintaining a highly effective and internal stakeholder focused Engineering Datacenter. This position reports to the VP of Engineering along with several dotted line stakeholders and is responsible for managing all aspects of datacenter operations primarily focused for engineering operations and cross functional teams such as sales, marketing and customer support

Responsibilities

Hands on lead and manage datacenter operations, infrastructure and services team. Detect and proactively address issues to enable 24x7 operations with 100% uptime. Monitor and report Operational status and measure against service level objectives
• Define and document datacenter processes and best practices. Ensure they are communicated and followed; including operational dashboards, KPI's and SLA performance metrics.
• Drive operational efficiency through automation and adoption of new technologies
• Accountable for developing, gaining stakeholder buy in, and executing within Development and Quality Engineering the vision for providing a world class Enterprise Datacenter
• Hands on manage and track workload and requests. Balance the resolution of urgent incidents with progress on longer term projects. Creating the appropriate technical tools and automation to support outputs.
• Own specification of Datacenter standards for selecting equipment and services. Negotiate with vendors and obtain optimal terms and maintain within budget
• Own resource allocation and project workflow for direct reports and contractor workforce. Drive design and engineering decisions to conclusion including managing internal and external resources, project teams, contractors, and vendors
• Accountable for the Data Center appearance and functionality. Present to internal stakeholders as a competitive advantage.

Required Skills

• Bachelor of Science in an engineering discipline from an accredited university or college, required.
• 5+ years hands on technical experience relevant to datacenter activities. 8+ years of experience in a management role required, 10+ years preferred
• Experience in computer networking, hyper-converged platforms (Compute & Storage), File & Block storage systems, Configuring NFS\SMB, iSCSI, FC storage networks, VMware & Hyper-V hypervisor platform, Cloud platforms (AWS\GCP\Azure), DevOps tools & processes
• Driving the design & re-factoring of data center applications that are implemented in Python, Perl PHP & SQL. Designing & generating reports, data ingestion and making the customer data bundles available for engineering consumption
• Experience in scaling the data center infrastructure to accommodate a rapidly growing engineering organization. Design & implementation of end to end automation of infrastructure availability for engineering development & testing purposes
• Proven experience managing service expansion, datacenter moves, and extension to co-located operations. Hands-on experience with networking topology design & router\switch programming configurations
• Experience in leading, staffing and building a strong, effective and customer-focused global team
• Strong leadership, planning, decision making skills. Excellent communication skills to effectively work with present information to executive management, operations, sales engineering and finance

Salary for this role is $130,000

This position requires participation in an on-call rotation to provide after-hours support as needed.

DDN has a very strong orientation towards these 4 characteristics and any successful employee will demonstrate these capabilities:

Self-Starter - Takes independent action to identify and solve problems. Seeks out relevant information needed to make decisions. Gets involved with new initiatives.

Success/Achievement Orientation - Delivers quality results consistently. Targets, achieves (or exceeds) measurable results. Sets challenging goals, focuses on critical priorities, and is accountable.

Problem Solving - Recognizes problems and responds with a systematic assessment that identifies and addresses cause of issue. Practical, realistic, and resourceful.

Innovative - Builds and improves key business processes that enhance the effectiveness of DDN. Generates new ideas, challenges the status quo, and solves problems creatively.

DataDirect Networks, Inc. is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, gender, gender identity, gender expression, transgender, sex stereotyping, sexual orientation, national origin, disability, protected Veteran Status, or any other characteristic protected by applicable federal, state, or local law.

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