Director, Design Management

CoreWeave is The Essential Cloud for AI. Built for pioneers by pioneers, CoreWeave delivers a platform of technology, tools, and teams that enables innovators to build and scale AI with confidence.

What You'll Do

The Data Center Design team is responsible for managing the delivery of architectural, engineering, and technology designs across CoreWeave's global data center portfolio. The team coordinates the design lifecycle from early-stage project definition through construction, commissioning support, and IT deployment, ensuring CoreWeave's technical requirements are incorporated into each project and delivered in accordance with established scope, schedule, budget, and quality expectations.

About the Role

We are seeking an accomplished Director level individual to lead the Design Management team responsible for overseeing project management across CoreWeave's data center portfolio. This individual will supervise, mentor, and develop a team of Design Managers, ensuring they have the direction, resources, processes, and cross-functional support required to deliver successful projects.

Responsibilities

• Team Leadership & Development: Lead, manage, mentor, and develop a team of Design Managers. Establish clear expectations, provide ongoing coaching, evaluate performance, and support the continued growth of a high-performing team.
• Portfolio Design Delivery: Maintain oversight of design delivery across a portfolio of concurrent data center projects, ensuring each project is progressing in accordance with approved scope, schedule, budget, quality, and business requirements.
• Design Project Management Expertise: Serve as the organizational subject matter expert for data center design project management, establishing consistent methods for planning, coordinating, tracking, and delivering multidisciplinary design activities.
• Project Assignment & Resource Management: Assign Design Managers to projects based on complexity, geography, schedule, risk, and business priority. Monitor team capacity and develop staffing or consultant strategies to address resource constraints.
• Design Delivery Governance: Establish and administer design management processes, deliverable requirements, project controls, meeting structures, review milestones, decision logs, risk registers, change controls, and escalation pathways.
• Consultant & Provider Management: Oversee the performance of data center providers, architects, engineers, and other professional consultants. Establish expectations for deliverable quality, responsiveness, schedule performance, coordination, and adherence to contractual requirements.
• Executive Escalation & Risk Resolution: Serve as the senior escalation point for design delivery risks, unresolved coordination issues, scope gaps, consultant performance concerns, and decisions affecting project cost or schedule.
• Standards Implementation: Ensure CoreWeave's Design & Engineering Guidelines, Basis of Design, technology standards, and project-specific requirements are communicated to external partners and consistently incorporated into project deliverables.
• Design Quality & Completeness: Establish expectations for interdisciplinary coordination, constructability, document completeness, quality control, and resolution of review comments. Participate in critical design reviews and page-turn meetings for high-risk or strategically important projects.
• Budget & Schedule Coordination: Partner with Construction Management, Finance, and other stakeholders to develop and monitor design schedules, consultant budgets, forecasts, and key milestones. Ensure design activities support procurement, construction, commissioning, and customer deployment requirements.
• Design Change Management: Establish disciplined processes for evaluating and documenting design changes, including their effects on project scope, cost, schedule, constructability, operations, and technical performance.
• RFP & Consultant Selection: Lead or support the development of RFPs, evaluation of proposals, selection of A/E consultants and other design partners, negotiation of scopes and fees, and ongoing management of consultant contracts and invoices.
• OFCI Equipment Coordination: Ensure the Design Management team coordinates Owner-Furnished, Contractor-Installed equipment requirements with Engineering, Technology, Construction, Procurement, and external design teams.
• Construction & Commissioning Support: Ensure appropriate design support continues through construction and commissioning, including the timely resolution of RFIs, submittal reviews, field conditions, design clarifications, and changes affecting design intent.
• Executive & Portfolio Reporting: Provide executive leadership with clear reporting on design progress, project risks, consultant performance, key decisions, budgets, schedules, and issues requiring leadership action.
• Stakeholder Communication: Establish expectations for timely and effective communication across Design Management, Engineering, Technology, Construction, Operations, Capacity, Supply Chain, Network Engineering, and other project stakeholders.
• Project Handoffs: Ensure effective transitions between project development, design, procurement, construction, commissioning, and operations, with clear documentation of outstanding risks, decisions, and responsibilities.
• Process Improvement: Identify opportunities to improve design workflows, project gating, document control, consultant management, risk tracking, lessons learned, and overall consistency of project delivery.
• Continuous Improvement & Innovation: Collaborate with Engineering and Technology leadership to incorporate lessons learned, emerging technologies, and improved delivery practices into future projects.