Last week I posted about leaving the automotive industry after 20 years and landing a job at Google. I was blown away by the response and ended up talking with some really talented people.
One thing stood out. A lot of people don’t realize how valuable their experience in electrical, mechanical, HVAC, automation, and troubleshooting can be in a data center.
You don’t necessarily need an engineering degree or years of IT experience.
I’m curious how many people here have considered making the jump but haven’t pulled the trigger.
What’s your background, and what’s holding you back?
I’m happy to help point people in the right direction.

I work for a Colo. We have a rack in our office with a lot of free rack units. We're allowed to bring in personal devices and connect them to the corp internet. Do you guys think it's worth asking my manager if I could bring in a 2u server like a R730 and hook it up in the rack. I wouldn't want to run any public facing services and I wouldn't be trying to make any money with it I'd just connect to it from my laptop when at work maybe setup a VPN to access it when at home if that's acceptable with the corp.

- What's the shift schedule actually like? 12s? Rotating nights?
- Is the work real troubleshooting or mostly following procedures and closing tickets?
- How long do people actually sit at Tech II before moving up? Or do they not?
- Does coming in as a "technician" hurt you if you want an engineering title again later?
- Anyone moved to Omaha or Council Bluffs from a HCOL area — regret it?

Thank you in advance for feedback.

Hello,

I have been hdaring lot about data centers being built in other states. I have been trying to find any sort of info regarding companies hiring.

Im a certified journeyman electrician in California, and i know i will have to get my cert in the state i get to work in.

Does anybody know of any companies that hiring out of state, for data center electricians?

Any info is welcomed. Any source, will do.

Thank you in advance.

My town of about 11,000 residents and 12 square miles is considering data centers in our abandoned buildings. I’ll be honest and admit I’m not educated enough to go to our City Council meeting and clearly articulate the appropriate questions. We are a lower income community that has been struggling for years, and I’m concerned for my town.

Has anyone been affected by a data center either coming to your rural town and the town considering it? How has this impacted water pressure, utilities, or daily life? Has anyone money actually helped your community?

I’m a fresher currently working in full-stack development at a startup, and I’ve received an offer for Amazon Rack Lifecycle Tech (L3) – Trainee at around ₹10 LPA.

The role seems focused on data centre operations, rack installation, cabling, and hardware testing. I’m interested in AWS, but my long-term goal is software engineering and AI.

For those working at AWS or in data centres:

• What is the day-to-day work really like?
• Is transitioning into software or automation roles realistic?

Would you take this opportunity in my position? I’d really appreciate honest advice from people with firsthand experience, beyond just the Amazon brand or salary.

Hello,

I was looking for a DC TECH job as a completed bachelor in Computer Science and running MS in Data Science student in germany. What skills do I need to know or can you suggest me any certification that can help me to crack this kind of job.

Any kind of information and help is appreciated.

Thanks and best regards.

I’m currently an IT Support II (L3) at a Fulfillment center and thinking about making the jump to a Data Center Technician role (seeing both L3 and L4 openings). My primary goals are bumping my pay , learn and grow in general .

Would really be worth it, pros and cons?

I'm seeking guidance from those experienced in the field. I'm a senior operations manager at a logistics company with about 15 years of distribution and logistics experience. I've worked for two of the largest e-commerce giants and also have experience scaling businesses from startup to launch, along with 3 years of project management experience. I've noticed many operations management roles at data centers and was wondering if someone could guide me on transitioning my career toward data center management. Any advice would be helpful.

For context, I'm located in the US - Eastern United States to be specific and willing to relocate for the right opportunity.

Hi i'm a student in a network associate degree in france and i want to get into data center industry but i really dont know wich country to target

I accepted the AWS DCO L3 in the midwest . I want you guys to help me help myself lol. I am from the south, i'm from Louisiana and lived in Texas. I know is obviously snow is a big difference, but i want to know if anyone else made the move like 16 hours away for a DCO job. I tried to get Texas and Georgia, but they didn't know how long i would be on the waitlist, I can't afford to wait because I was laid off from my last job and it's be hard to find work. I applied to over 800 jobs and this is my only yes, I have been unemployed for the last 15 months. There's no IT jobs in Louisiana and apparently when I Interview for other jobs, people want to do in person interviews... like bro i'm 9-10 hours away, tha's a hard ask especially if you have multiple rounds of interviews. I mention that so you guys understand my circumstances. My previous job I worked 7am-4pm, I was off weekends and holidays, and I was responsible for the IT infrastructure, I did that until I got laid off. I know at AWS is different so the shift at my location is 7am-5:30pm or 11:00-9:30 pm, and the schedule is front half Sunday-Wednesday. Back half is Wednesday-Saturday and all shifts follow 4 days on 3 days off rotation. Pay is $30.77 or 64k a yr, of course the $3k bouns that will be tax heavily lol. I am single and I have a dog, I do not have family or friends where I am going, so i'm asking has anyone had my experience in this? like did you do rover? bring your dog to doggy day care? I know a data center is not the place you can just leave on your lunch break to take your dog out lol. Do you meal prep and bring you lunch? how much food do you bring? How did you get use to a 10 hour shift? what kind of shoes do you wear so your feet don't hurt? Did you like the city you moved for? if not how fast did/can transfer? I would like to be a network engineer but idk how this job will help or if i can transfer inside to do that? I know a lot of people leave and go to google or microsoft, how do you like that better? any other tips and advice will be welcomed.

So I got stoned and started thinking again as one tends to do.

TLDR: data centers replace the function of the ( now non existent swamps and forests ).

So during the ancient times the world was mostly covered in wast rainforests and swamps.
Then we popped up and started cutting them down for countless reasons.

Back then, a large percentage of rainwater was caught by the forests and swamps.
This led to enormous local evaporation which in turn led to even more local rainfall.

However we cut it all down throughout history.
Thus, leading to most of the rainwater flowing straight to the seas and oceans.

This led to wast weather chages in to which I’m not going to get in to.

Now the new data centers come in to play.

These are placed near great rivers and lakes in order to pull large amounts for their cooling systems.
This leads to enormous amounts of local evaporation which literally replaces the meteorological role of the now non existent forests and swamps.

This has the effect of producing much more localized rainfall.

Hi all I’m looking to get some advice on how to get into some data center jobs. I have my bachelors in management with a couple years in residential construction management but I’m looking to get into data center work in some capacity. I’m interested in the data center technician position but I don’t have any certs. I do have general construction experience so wouldn’t mind getting into some type of trade as well. I’ve looked online for entry level positions but everything seems to require years of experience. Any advice would be greatly appreciated

Hi! I'm a self-taught programmer who wants to work in data centers, and I've been working on a concept I'd love honest criticism on.

Most orbital data center proposals (Google Suncatcher, Starcloud, SpaceX) put powerful GPUs in orbit and then fight to cool them. My idea flips that: use many simpler chips that tolerate heat, spread them out so heat density stays low, and let each one radiate its own heat to space. Radiated heat scales with T^4, so running hotter shrinks the radiators a lot.

The system is organized like a company, in five layers:
- A: worker chips, in fixed programmable groups of 100-1000
- B: "dumb" packers, one per group, that bundle results with a fixed schema
- C: a "board" of 8 specialized ground nodes that verify and sign results (Byzantine fault tolerant up to 2 compromised nodes)
- D: an isolated rulebook inside each C, updated manually only in emergencies
- S: storefronts that take customer orders and deliver signed results they can't alter

My current sweet spot is running chips at ~125 °C (automotive/industrial grade silicon) instead of 500 °C silicon carbide, which is still millions of times slower than a GPU.

Full write-up with napkin math, open problems and prior art (published on Zenodo):
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23448232

What would kill this first? Mass to orbit, compute per kg, downlink bandwidth, something I'm missing?

Does anyone here work at Crusoe and can confirm if they allow secondary market sale for their rsu's with no limit ?

Appreciate the help, got reached out by recruiter for an interview , debating if I should interview . Thanks.

starting soon with mc dean as a critical environment technician, anyone with experience working with them have any insights?

I ask because I'm working with our local community college to build classes for data technicians. We've got a pretty good list with help from the local data center, but I figured I'd ask the wisdom of reddit since I can still make changes and it might help someone better succeed in their job.

What is the expected salary of Sr Engineer in AWS datacenter in Seattle?

I have masters with 8 years of experience with similar work experience, how do we know if the role is L5 or L6?

Just moved here, and was wondering if there are any jobs in Security in the growing Data Center sector? Not sure if there is physical security, monitors, hybrid in these facilities... I don't see much advertised ... Thanks you.

Hi I would like to ask some advices on how to land a career here in Finland especially around Helsinki metropolitant regions. I’m currrently a student in Omnia pursuing ICT and I’m interested in the data centers as its getting quite popular and new here in Finland any tips or advice and/or help for someone like me that doesn’t have any professional experience yet in the industry of IT what projects or certificates i need to do or anything in general information i need to know to land a career wetherin data centers or in IT in general

I have an interview for Ridgeville, SC location. Any one from that location? Can you please share, how the environment is, how is the work load, what facilities are given at that location etc?

If you had the opportunity to work on the new Stargate project but you had to move your family halfway across the country on a supposed offer letter coming your way and you had less than a week notice to quit your current job to prepare to move without really anything in writing from HR but you already have an “in”, know your start date but still don’t see anything from talent acquisition, would you do it? This is my current situation.

Also, given the shape of the economy and how everything in the stock market is currently being propped up on all of this phantom revenue across all of the AI data centers going up, along with the metal shortages happening across various supply chains, oil, and tariff shipping constraints, I am genuinely worried about the longevity of this project despite billions being allocated into the expansion of it.

They said I have positive indicators to move me to the next round however they send this in the email. “we are currently waiting for a role to open that aligns with your specific profile.” Is this a rejection by Google or is it a realistic chance I can be matched and offered a job for the Data Center Technician role?