Data Center Design Execution Lead

About Anthropic

Anthropic’s mission is to create reliable, interpretable, and steerable AI systems. We want AI to be safe and beneficial for our users and for society as a whole. Our team is a quickly growing group of committed researchers, engineers, policy experts, and business leaders working together to build beneficial AI systems.

About the Team

Anthropic’s Infrastructure team is responsible for designing, delivering, and scaling the physical compute environments that power our AI research and products. The team sits at the intersection of internal customers and an ecosystem of external engineering, construction, and development partners. From site selection through design, construction, commissioning, and ongoing operations, Infrastructure ensures that Anthropic’s datacenter footprint keeps pace with our research ambitions.

About the Role

We are looking for a Design Execution Manager to own the bridge between Anthropic’s technical requirements and the third-party partners who bring our datacenters to life. This is not a pure design role or a pure project management role—it lives in the critical space between the two, ensuring that design follows the requirements, and that technical intent survives every handoff from concept through turnover.

Scope spans the full design lifecycle: concept, schematic, permitting, development, construction administration, commissioning, and operations. The right candidate thrives in environments where nimble but structured processes need to be built, not just followed, and is energized by the challenge of standing up execution frameworks across a rapidly growing portfolio of mission-critical facilities.

Responsibilities

Design Execution & Partner Oversight

• Drive execution of Anthropic’s technical requirements for third-party datacenter delivery partners, ensuring design intent is consistently translated from BOD through construction documents.
• Define the design execution framework—deliverable requirements, review gates, and quality standards—for each partner engagement.
• Drive accountability for partner deliverable quality across milestones, evaluating deliverables for cross-discipline consistency and alignment to Anthropic’s requirements.
• Partner with external design teams and stakeholders to execute design document development and issuance across all project phases.

Change Management & Technical Continuity

• Own the design change management process across projects, ensuring technical decisions are documented, resolved, and implemented through construction.
• Review and develop responses to contractor RFIs, maintaining design intent while accommodating field conditions.
• Own technical continuity across design, construction, commissioning, and turnover, driving alignment between internal leads on phase transition standards and acceptance criteria.
• Support project closeout and as-built documentation processes.

Constructability & Risk Management

• Facilitate constructability review processes between design and construction teams, surfacing integration risks raised by discipline leads for resolution, maintaining alignment between design intent and field execution as conditions evolve.
• Drive risk identification and mitigation through partner QA/QC processes, across the design and construction lifecycle.
• Direct and supervise external partners and owners reps conducting site reviews, ensuring technical reports adequately capture design compliance and construction progress.

Cross-Functional Coordination

• Interface with internal stakeholders—construction execution, supply chain, facilities operations, and security—to align design solutions with technical and business objectives.
• Partner with internal teams to define infrastructure requirements and translate them into actionable design criteria for external partners.
• Identify and implement opportunities for process improvements, design optimization, and schedule/performance/cost tradeoffs.
• Oversee partner-led commissioning review, ensuring outcomes are documented against Anthropic's standards.

Qualifications 

Required

• 10+ years managing complex capital/infrastructure programs, including datacenters, spanning design and delivery phases.
• Experience managing design execution or technical programs in partnership with external design/construction firms — design management, owner's engineering, or program management backgrounds all fit.
• Working familiarity with mechanical, electrical, and cooling systems sufficient to manage technical discussions and hold discipline experts accountable
• Experience managing design change processes, RFIs, and construction documentation workflows.
• Track record of coordinating across multiple disciplines and organizations on complex infrastructure projects.
• Familiarity with industry standards, building codes, and safety standards applicable to mission-critical facilities.
• Comfortable operating with authority in ambiguous environments where processes need to be built, not just followed.
• BS in Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Architecture, or related field.

Preferred

• Professional Engineer (PE) or Registered Architect (RA) license.
• Proficiency with Revit/BIM, Autodesk, or similar design software applications.
• Experience integrating sustainability, energy efficiency, and resiliency goals into datacenter system designs.
• Direct experience with large-scale AI/HPC infrastructure, including high-density cooling systems and power distribution at 50+ MW scale.