Job Description

Mission:

Lead operational excellence at Groq's Buffalo, NY data center, building consistent, reliable, and scalable operations in a liquid-cooled environment. You will lead the on-site team, own day-to-day site operations, and drive the processes, systems, and partnerships required to operate mission-critical infrastructure with urgency and discipline.

This role combines hands-on people leadership, technical depth, and operational execution. You will establish and uphold consistent operating standards at the site while staying close to the team and infrastructure to identify issues, remove barriers, and continuously improve how we operate.

Location:

United States, based in Buffalo, NY. This is an on-site role at Groq's Buffalo data center, with occasional domestic and international travel as needed.

Responsibilities & opportunities in this role:

• Lead and develop the on-site data center operations team at the Buffalo data center.
• Own day-to-day operational performance of the site, driving consistent standards for reliability, security, safety, execution, and accountability.
• Build scalable operating rhythms for the site, including staffing and scheduling, training, performance management, site reviews, escalation processes, and communication with Groq's wider data center organization.
• Hire, develop, and retain technical talent while building a strong local team that operates effectively as part of Groq's distributed data center organization.
• Partner closely with infrastructure, networking, security, engineering, logistics, and other teams to maintain stable and efficient mission-critical environments.
• Maintain strong technical engagement across Linux systems, networking, security, hardware, and data center infrastructure, providing leadership and sound judgment during complex operational issues.
• Own day-to-day operation of the site's liquid cooling infrastructure, including coolant distribution units (CDUs), secondary fluid networks, and rack-level cooling, working with facilities teams and vendors on monitoring, maintenance, leak response, and change control.
• Lead response to high-severity incidents, coordinating on-site staff, vendors, and cross-functional teams to restore operations quickly and translating lessons learned into durable improvements.
• Drive continuous improvement and automation at the site, reducing manual work, improving reliability, and creating repeatable processes that scale.
• Own vendor relationships, asset management, resource planning, and operational budgets for the site.
• Lead data center improvement programs from planning through execution, balancing immediate operational priorities with longer-term infrastructure needs.
• Develop, maintain, and test business continuity and disaster recovery practices for the site.
• Use operational data and performance indicators to identify risks, prioritize improvements, and drive accountability at the site.
• Maintain a visible, hands-on leadership presence on the data center floor through daily team engagement, operational reviews, and direct support.
• Help shape and improve Groq's data center operating model, sharing lessons from running a liquid-cooled site with peer sites as infrastructure and operational requirements evolve.

Ideal candidates have/are:

• Experienced leaders in mission-critical data center or infrastructure operations, with demonstrated success running a data center site and leading its on-site team.
• Proven people managers who have hired, developed, coached, and retained technical talent.
• Strong operational leaders who create clear expectations, consistent standards, and accountability for their team and site.
• Deep technical knowledge of Linux systems, networking, security, hardware, and data center infrastructure, with the ability to troubleshoot complex infrastructure issues and effectively lead technical teams.
• Experienced managing high-severity outages or operational crises with structured decision-making, clear communication, and urgency.
• Experience operating or maintaining liquid cooling systems in a data center environment, such as coolant distribution units (CDUs), direct-to-chip cooling, secondary fluid networks, or rear-door heat exchangers, is highly desired.
• Familiar with infrastructure automation and configuration management tools such as Ansible, Puppet, or Chef, with experience using automation to improve operational efficiency and reliability.
• Experienced managing vendors, assets, budgets, resources, and operational planning within complex infrastructure environments.
• Strong program managers who can prioritize and execute infrastructure and operational improvement initiatives.
• Experienced with disaster recovery and business continuity planning for mission-critical environments.
• Effective cross-functional partners who can build alignment and influence technical and business stakeholders.
• Clear communicators who can lead an on-site team and keep remote stakeholders across time zones informed.
• Able to work on site in Buffalo, NY, with occasional domestic and international travel as needed.
• Motivated by ownership, continuous improvement, technical excellence, and building operational systems that scale.

Why Join Us:

• Purposeful Hiring: You’re not here by accident, and neither is anyone else. Every teammate is handpicked with intention because who we build with matters.
• Builders Wanted: You’re not just riding the rocket ship, you’re building it. Your work directly shapes the trajectory of our company.
• Mission-Driven Work: We’re here to make a real impact. Our mission fuels everything we do.
• Tackling Hard Problems: If easy isn’t your thing, you’re in the right place. We solve some of the most complex and exciting challenges in our space.
• Excellence Is The Standard: High performance isn’t just encouraged, it’s the baseline. And it’s contagious.

Compensation

Groq is committed to providing competitive compensation through our Total Cash philosophy, which incorporates potential bonus value directly into base pay. The total cash salary range for this position, which is inclusive of the potential bonus value, is $169,700–$199,600, with individual placement determined by your geographic location, experience, skills, and alignment with internal compensation standards. This range is specific to candidates located in the United States. Compensation for international candidates will vary based on local market dynamics. Beyond cash compensation, Groq also offers a Long-Term Incentive (LTI) Program and a robust suite of employee benefits.

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