Senior Technical Lead - Data Centres

Who we are

We are the market leader in commercial real estate services and investments and provide an integrated suite of high-quality real estate services to our clients across Africa and the Middle East, including facilities management, advisory & transaction services, project management. We support predominantly corporate clients who buy services on a contracted basis all across the Middle East and Africa - even globally, depending on their portfolio.

Why choose us

Imagine more than just the future of work; with CBRE Excellerate, you can create it. As part of our global powerhouse, you'll find a culture that fosters an entrepreneurial mindset, where your best work is not just encouraged but celebrated. Collaborate with talented individuals, harness the support of unparalleled resources, and enjoy the journey as you grow both personally and professionally.

About the role

The primary purpose of this role is to provide senior technical leadership and operational oversight for critical data centre facilities and engineering services, ensuring safe, compliant and reliable operation of all critical infrastructure. The role is responsible for maintaining engineering resilience and availability, supporting the client’s uptime objectives, and providing technical direction to site engineering teams and service providers.

The Senior Technical Lead acts as a senior technical authority across the data centre environment, ensuring planned and reactive maintenance, critical works, change activities, incident response, risk mitigation, engineering standards and technical compliance are effectively managed. The role also provides technical leadership during the mobilisation and operational readiness of new data centre contracts and provides technical input into tenders and client solutions.

What you will bring

• Minimum 8–10 years’ relevant technical engineering / Facilities Management experience, preferably within mission-critical or data centre environments.
• Engineering degree, diploma or recognised technical equivalent.
• Valid GMR 2(1) appointment under the applicable South African Occupational Health and Safety requirements, with demonstrated competence to fulfil the legal appointment.
• Valid Government Certificate of Competency (GCC) – Electrical, Factories.
• Demonstrated data centre critical infrastructure and building services experience.
• Proven experience in electrical and mechanical critical systems, including MV/LV electrical distribution, UPS, generators, cooling/HVAC, fire and life safety systems and associated controls. Detailed exposure to transformers, MV/LV switchgear, ATS/STS, PDUs, protection systems and relays, earthing and lightning protection, power quality/metering, and EPMS/BMS/DCIM interfaces.
• MV switching qualification and/or demonstrated MV switching experience.
• Strong knowledge and practical experience of Permit-to-Work systems, isolation procedures and safe systems of work.
• Experience developing and implementing SOPs, EOPs, CWP documentation and technical risk assessments.
• Proven experience in incident investigation, RCA development and presentation of technical findings to senior/C-suite stakeholders.
• Valid driver’s licence and willingness to travel within South Africa and the Africa region, where required.
• Ideally at least 5 years’ experience within data centres or comparable mission-critical environments (e.g. hyperscale, colocation or enterprise data centres, telecommunications, banking / financial services, utilities and power infrastructure, large industrial / process facilities or other 24/7 environments).
• Previous experience accepting and carrying statutory appointment responsibility for substantial electrical / machinery infrastructure is strongly preferred.
• Experience operating within redundant N+1 / 2N environments, including responsibility for UPS and generator configurations, MV voltage levels and facility MW / MVA capacity.
• Experience in the mobilisation and transition of new sites, including technical due diligence, asset condition assessments and operational readiness.
• Advantageous: ECSA professional registration (Pr Eng, Pr Tech Eng or Pr Cert Eng, as appropriate to qualification and experience).
• Advantageous: Uptime Institute ATS / ATD or equivalent data centre-specific professional certification.
• Advantageous: OEM technical certification (UPS, switchgear, generators or other critical infrastructure) and formal MV/HV switching training / authorisation.
• Advantageous: Reliability or maintenance engineering certification; project or asset management qualification.

Skills required:

• Senior technical leadership and engineering decision-making
• Strong analytical, troubleshooting and root-cause analysis capability
• Excellent written and verbal communication
• Ability to communicate complex technical matters clearly to technical and non-technical stakeholders
• Critical environment / data centre operational management
• Risk assessment, mitigation and technical change management
• Incident management and emergency response
• Team leadership, coaching and technical competency development
• Contractor and specialist service-provider management
• Strong planning, prioritisation and documentation skills
• Proficiency in MS Office and relevant CAFM / CMMS / critical-facilities systems
• Technical assurance, peer review and approval of high-risk interventions on live critical infrastructure
• Sound engineering judgement under pressure, including the confidence to challenge unsafe or technically unacceptable activities and stop work
• Reviewing electrical single-line diagrams and identifying single points of failure and technical vulnerabilities
• Technical due diligence, mobilisation and operational readiness of new sites
• Technical input into tenders, RFPs, scopes of work and staffing models
• Balancing reliability, risk, lifecycle cost and operational requirements

Knowledge required:

• Data centre critical engineering and building services
• Electrical and mechanical infrastructure, including critical power and cooling systems
• Engineering resilience, redundancy, availability and business continuity principles
• Resilient data centre electrical architectures (N, N+1, 2N) and the principles of concurrent maintainability
• Consequences of equipment isolation, switching activities and equipment failure throughout the critical power chain
• Planned Preventative Maintenance (PPM), reactive maintenance and critical shutdown management
• Preventive, predictive and condition-based maintenance strategies, reliability engineering, and critical spares and OEM maintenance requirements
• South African Occupational Health and Safety requirements applicable to engineering and critical environments
• GMR 2(1) legal appointment responsibilities and statutory compliance requirements
• General Machinery Regulations, Electrical Installation Regulations and relevant engineering standards
• Must hold a Government Certificate of Competency (GCC) – Electrical, Factories, and be eligible and willing to accept the applicable statutory appointment/designation for relevant operations and premises in accordance with South African legislation.
• Permit-to-Work, electrical isolation, LOTO and safe systems of work
• Technical risk management, CERM methodologies and engineering risk registers
• Change management and client change approval processes
• SOP, EOP and CWP development and control (including MOPs and electrical switching procedures)
• Incident reporting, RCA and corrective/preventive action management
• Asset condition assessment, lifecycle management and technical audits
• Quantum or equivalent risk / compliance management platforms, where applicable
• Mobilisation, transition and operational readiness of new data centre sites, including asset register validation, resilience reviews and asset criticality assessments
• Technical evaluation of RFP requirements, including engineering risks, resource needs and specialist subcontractor / OEM requirements

What you will be doing

Client & Technical Stakeholder Management:

• Act as senior technical point of contact for client engineering and facilities stakeholders.
• Build and maintain trusted technical relationships.
• Provide clear technical updates, risk escalation and recommendations.
• Ensure technical deliverables and contractual commitments are met.
• Support technical presentations and RCA reporting to senior/C-suite stakeholders.
• Participate in client technical workshops, site surveys and technical due diligence exercises.

Data Centre Engineering & Reliability:

• Provide technical leadership for critical data centre engineering operations.
• Ensure planned and reactive maintenance is effectively managed and completed.
• Review maintenance strategies and assess the potential impact of engineering works.
• Ensure appropriate technical and supervisory cover for critical works and shutdowns.
• Conduct and maintain asset condition reviews for critical engineering plant.
• Provide technical support and guidance to site engineering teams.
• Support the objective of maintaining high availability and minimising impact to client operations.
• Develop and continuously improve preventive, predictive and condition-based maintenance strategies aligned to equipment criticality, statutory requirements and OEM recommendations.
• Review electrical single-line diagrams and identify single points of failure, technical vulnerabilities and appropriate mitigation strategies.
• Develop asset lifecycle and critical spares strategies, and monitor equipment performance to identify emerging reliability risks.
• Provide technical oversight and challenge to OEMs, specialist vendors and subcontractors to ensure work meets engineering, safety and quality standards.

Critical Works, Risk & Change Management:

• Develop and review CWP documentation for planned maintenance and critical works.
• Develop and maintain SOPs and EOPs to minimise operational and human-factor risk.
• Ensure safety documentation and risk controls are in place for planned electrical isolations and other critical interventions.
• Apply CERM methodologies and actively manage engineering risks.
• Understand and support client change approval processes.
• Ensure Quantum actions / risk information are current and accurately maintained, where applicable.
• Review and approve SOPs, MOPs, EOPs, electrical switching procedures, PTW/LOTO documentation, risk assessments and method statements.
• Provide technical assurance for high-risk and potentially service-impacting activities, and stop work where unacceptable technical or safety risk exists.
• Ensure internal change control and peer review are completed before any intervention on live critical infrastructure.

Statutory, QHSE & Technical Compliance:

• Maintain compliance with applicable OHS, statutory, client and CBRE technical requirements.
• Fulfil the responsibilities associated with the GMR 2(1) legal appointment and applicable GCC requirements.
• Ensure Permit-to-Work, isolation and safe systems of work are effectively implemented.
• Support technical audits, inspections and compliance assessments.
• Identify non-conformances and ensure corrective actions are implemented.
• Promote safe working practices and engineering standards across the site.
• Maintain working knowledge of the General Machinery Regulations, Electrical Installation Regulations and relevant engineering standards.
• Support the development of appropriate statutory appointment structures for new data centre contracts and mobilisations.

People, Competency & Training:

• Develop the engineering team through coaching, technical guidance and competency development.
• Deliver or coordinate training on SOPs, EOPs, critical systems and safe working practices.
• Ensure technical assessments and competency-based training portfolios are maintained.
• Conduct scenario training and quality-control sessions.
• Ensure engineering resources can escalate and communicate clear, concise information to stakeholders.

Incident, RCA, Reporting & Continuous Improvement:

• Lead or support technical incident response and investigation.
• Ensure RCA reports are completed to the required standard and within agreed timeframes.
• Track corrective and preventive actions through to closure.
• Identify initiatives that improve reliability, safety, service levels and operational efficiency.
• Support the growth and development of the Data Centre Services business and its customers.
• Ensure lessons learned from incidents are incorporated into engineering standards, SOPs, MOPs and EOPs.
• Provide technical escalation support to site Critical Facilities Managers and engineering teams.

Mobilisation, Operational Readiness & Solutions Support:

• Provide technical leadership during mobilisation and transition of new data centre contracts.
• Lead or support technical due diligence, site and asset condition assessments, asset register validation, resilience reviews and asset criticality assessments.
• Develop and review SOP, MOP and EOP libraries, CMMS maintenance requirements, critical spares, technical staffing and competency requirements, and statutory appointments.
• Ensure new sites are technically ready for safe operational takeover.
• Provide technical input into tenders, RFPs, scopes of work, staffing models and technical proposals, identifying engineering risks and OEM / specialist subcontractor requirements.
• Support the development of standard data centre maintenance methodologies and technical solutions.

CBRE Excellerate is committed to striving for diversity and equitable representation in our workforce. Preference may thus be given to suitably qualified candidates as identified in our employment equity plan. Persons with disabilities are encouraged to apply.