Data Center Project Manager

SkillAxis / COOPr

Data Center Project Manager

Critical Infrastructure Delivery & Operations Intelligence

Location: Madison, NC / Onsite | Reports to: SkillAxis Leadership | Client: Electrical Industrial Contractors (EIC)

About the Opportunity

SkillAxis is building the next generation of AI-native operations infrastructure for the construction industry through our platform, COOPr. We partner directly with electrical contracting firms to transform how critical infrastructure projects are managed, delivered, and optimized.

We are seeking a Data Center Project Manager to serve as our onsite operations lead at Electrical Industrial Company (EIC) on the MAD1 data center project in Madison, North Carolina. This is not a traditional PM hire. You will own the day-to-day delivery of an active data center construction project while simultaneously identifying operational gaps, process inefficiencies, and information bottlenecks that our AI-powered platform is designed to solve.

In short: you run the project on the ground and help define the systems that make construction project management radically better.

Why This Role Exists

Construction project management is broken. Superintendents spend 35% of their time on non-productive information hunting. 70% of projects experience schedule delays. The tools exist (Procore, email, daily logs), but the intelligence layer connecting them does not.

This role sits at the intersection of operational execution and product innovation. You will deliver a real project for a real client while feeding critical insights back into the COOPr platform, helping us build software that understands how construction actually works — not how it looks in a vendor demo.

Key ResponsibilitiesProject Delivery & Oversight

• Manage and deliver electrical/mechanical construction work within a live data center environment
• Own project scope, timeline, budget, and quality for the MAD1 job site
• Coordinate across disciplines including electrical, mechanical, controls, fire detection, and building automation systems
• Review construction and project package drawings; create project scopes, RFPs, and capital requests
• Work directly with contractors, vendors, and subcontractors to deliver efficient, high-quality project turnovers
• Drive troubleshooting and root cause failure analysis for equipment or electrical system failures
• Conduct engineering evaluations, electrical systems audits, and mechanical system reviews onsite

Operations Intelligence & Process Innovation

• Identify workflow gaps, communication breakdowns, and information bottlenecks across the active project
• Document tribal knowledge, heuristic decision-making, and implicit processes that exist only in people’s heads
• Serve as the primary field tester and feedback source for COOPr platform features including the Daily Planner, schedule intelligence, and Procore integration
• Champion adoption of COOPr tools among field teams, with particular focus on low-friction interfaces that meet superintendent expectations
• Collaborate with SkillAxis engineering to translate real operational pain points into product requirements
• Use COOPr’s AI-powered tools to surface daily priorities, flag schedule risks, and track change order exposure

Strategic & Cross-Functional Leadership

• Act as the bridge between EIC field operations at MAD1 and SkillAxis product development
• Record and report key project metrics to EIC leadership and SkillAxis stakeholders
• Perform business case analysis to justify project scope and present to management
• Provide input on capacity delivery, resource allocation, and project sequencing

A Day in the Life

You start the morning reviewing COOPr’s Daily Planner, which has surfaced today’s critical tasks for MAD1 and flagged an RFI that’s blocking electrical rough-in in the main server hall. You coordinate with the superintendent to reprioritize the afternoon crew deployment before the 9 AM site walk.

Mid-morning, the architect sends a verbal scope change on the bus duct routing. You document it immediately through COOPr, which drafts a change order notice with cost estimates based on contract rates. That’s potential revenue that would have otherwise been absorbed.

After lunch, you’re reviewing the mechanical sub’s daily log and notice they didn’t report manpower for two crews. You flag it and follow up directly — consistent logging matters for billing and for the intelligence layer that’s learning from this project.

Late afternoon, you join a quick sync with the SkillAxis team. You share that the Procore schedule sync is missing predecessor relationships for a task type that matters on this job, and that foremen want a faster way to see weather delay impacts. Those become next sprint priorities.

This is the role: you deliver the project at the speed of construction while building the intelligence layer that makes everyone faster.

Basic Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent professional experience in Engineering, Construction Management, or Project Management
• Demonstrated ability to manage concurrent project activities with competing timelines and stakeholders
• Direct experience with Procore or equivalent construction management platforms
• Comfort with technology adoption; interest in AI-powered tools and operational analytics
• Strong verbal and written communication skills with the ability to manage vendor, subcontractor, and client relationships
• Willingness to be onsite at the Madison, NC project location regularly

Preferred Qualifications

• 3+ years of experience in data center engineering, data center operations, or critical infrastructure project delivery
• 3+ years of experience in construction management, including oversight of electrical and/or mechanical systems
• Direct experience with electrical contracting operations (rough-in, termination, commissioning workflows)
• Familiarity with schedule management tools (Jira, Asana, MS Project) and how schedule data flows between field and office
• Experience with change order management, RFI workflows, and contract administration in commercial or industrial construction
• Track record of identifying and implementing process improvements in construction or operations environments
• Experience working in or with electrical industrial, mission-critical, or data center environments

What Makes This Different

You are joining a design partnership where your field experience directly shapes a product used by the entire construction industry.

Traditional PM Role

This Role

Manages projects to close-out

Manages projects AND improves how projects are managed

Uses tools as-is

Shapes the tools and processes based on real field needs

Reports status upward

Feeds intelligence into an AI platform

Isolated to one company

Connected to a product reaching the entire vertical

About SkillAxis & COOPr

SkillAxis builds AI-native operations infrastructure. Our platform, COOPr, ingests real business context (meeting recordings, project data, emails, daily logs) and transforms it into a living knowledge graph that surfaces insights, flags risks, and supports human judgment in complex operational environments.

We’re building the intelligence layer that sits between messy operational reality and executable systems. Our construction vertical integrates directly with existing construction tools, processes schedule and financial data in real-time, and delivers insights that tell superintendents and project managers exactly what matters today — without requiring them to change how they work.