The posting
About Vantage
Vantage powers, cools, protects and connects the technology of the world’s well-known hyperscalers, cloud providers and large enterprises. Developing and operating across North America, EMEA and Asia Pacific, Vantage has evolved data center design in innovative ways to deliver dramatic gains in reliability, efficiency and sustainability in flexible environments that can scale as quickly as the market demands.
Reliability Engineering Department
The Reliability Engineering Team is responsible for the overall operating health of critical systems across Vantage global facilities. For each of the major systems Electrical, Mechanical, and Controls, the Reliability Engineering team is responsible for ensuring success in the commissioning stages of new construction, evaluating and improving the reliability and performance of existing critical infrastructure, sustaining equipment operational availability through maintenance program design, providing ongoing technical support to the Site Operations Teams, as well as providing systems reliability and maintainability feedback to the Design Engineering teams for future design considerations.
Position Overview
This role will be based in Denver, CO. Following our flexible work policy (3 days in-office, 2 days flexible).
Vantage is seeking a Vice President, Reliability Management System, North America to establish, lead, and continuously improve the management system that governs reliability and availability across the North American portfolio.
Reporting to the Senior Vice President, Enterprise Operational Excellence, North America, the Vice President owns the Reliability Management System strategy, operating model, governance, organizational capability, investment priorities, and portfolio outcomes. The role integrates operations engineering, technical process engineering, reliability practices, maintenance strategy, operational controls, telemetry, assurance, risk management, and organizational learning into a unified system for mission-critical operations.
The Vice President leads through Directors and senior technical leaders and operates through a federated model with Site Operations, Reliability Engineering, Automation Systems, Construction, Commissioning, Design, Technology, Procurement, Finance, and other enterprise functions. The role establishes clear decision rights and accountability boundaries across these functions, resolves material conflicts, and holds RMS leaders accountable for sustained adoption and results.
This role is accountable for the effectiveness, scalability, and business value of the Reliability Management System. Site Operations retains accountability for day-to-day facility operations and execution. The Vice President sets the system, standards, controls, performance expectations, and assurance mechanisms that enable Site Operations to operate reliably at scale.
The position requires executive judgment, deep mission-critical operations and engineering expertise, organizational leadership, and the ability to make consequential decisions involving reliability, safety, customer commitments, operational risk, investment, and long-term portfolio performance.
Essential Job Functions
Own Reliability Management System Strategy and Operating Model
- Define and own the North America Reliability Management System strategy, multi-year roadmap, target operating model, governance structure, maturity plan, and measures of success.
- Establish how RMS capabilities work together across operations engineering, reliability engineering, technical processes, maintenance, operational controls, telemetry, assurance, risk, and fleet learning.
- Define decision rights, accountability boundaries, required interfaces, escalation paths, and management mechanisms across RMS and partner functions.
- Set portfolio priorities and determine the sequencing of capability development, standards deployment, technology enablement, and organizational change.
- Advise the SVP and executive leadership on material reliability risks, capability gaps, operating-model choices, investment requirements, and tradeoffs.
- Ensure the RMS remains scalable and fit for purpose as the North American portfolio, operating complexity, and customer requirements evolve.
Establish Enterprise Reliability Standards and Controls
- Own the North America framework for operating standards, standard work, SOPs, MOPs, EOPs, maintenance requirements, job plans, technical process libraries, and related operational controls within RMS scope.
- Establish the governance and lifecycle used to develop, approve, deploy, revise, retire, and assure RMS standards and controlled technical content.
- Set expectations for safe, repeatable, practical, and verifiable work execution across different sites, designs, equipment vintages, and operating conditions.
- Resolve material conflicts among technical requirements, operating practices, design intent, maintenance needs, customer commitments, and portfolio standards.
- Establish the deviation, exception, and risk-acceptance framework for RMS requirements, including approval thresholds, compensating controls, expiration or review conditions, and closure evidence.
- Ensure systemic lessons, recurring defects, incidents, audits, and operating experience are translated into durable changes to standards, controls, training, maintenance, engineering, or design feedback.
Drive Portfolio Reliability, Risk, and Performance
- Establish the portfolio performance system for availability, asset reliability, maintainability, operational readiness, repeat-event reduction, control effectiveness, and other approved RMS outcomes.
- Define portfolio-level thresholds, leading indicators, escalation criteria, and executive reporting required to identify deteriorating performance and emerging systemic risk.
- Integrate telemetry, maintenance history, incident learning, reliability analysis, asset condition, operating evidence, and assurance findings into fleet-wide improvement priorities.
- Determine when local issues require cross-portfolio intervention, standard changes, investment, vendor action, or executive risk decisions.
- Sponsor systemic corrective actions and require evidence that actions are implemented, effective, sustained, and applied across relevant sites.
- Provide executive recommendations on reliability investments, asset strategies, maintenance approaches, resource priorities, and accepted risk.
Lead Maintenance and Asset Reliability Strategy
- Set the North America maintenance and asset reliability strategy within RMS, including reliability-centered maintenance, equipment criticality, preventive and predictive maintenance, condition-based practices, failure analysis, and lifecycle decision support.
- Establish the technical and engineering decision framework for maintenance standards, service models, critical-spares strategy, repair or replacement choices, and vendor-supported versus internally performed work.
- Ensure maintenance and asset strategies reflect equipment risk, redundancy, failure history, customer commitments, business impact, lifecycle condition, and speed-to-restore requirements.
- Partner with Site Operations, Reliability Engineering, Procurement, Finance, and Technology leaders to align maintenance execution, vendor models, systems of record, data requirements, and investment priorities.
- Establish executive visibility into material maintenance, spares, asset-health, and service-provider risks that could affect availability or operational readiness.
Own Assurance, Maturity, and Management Review
- Define and lead the RMS assurance model, including operational assessments, control-effectiveness reviews, maturity evaluations, corrective-action governance, and executive management reviews.
- Establish an objective view of whether RMS requirements are understood, adopted, evidenced, effective, and sustained across the portfolio.
- Ensure assurance activity is risk-based, coordinated, and designed to improve the operating system rather than create duplicative oversight.
- Require accountable leaders to address systemic findings, overdue actions, ineffective controls, and repeat issues through clear recovery plans and escalation.
- Use performance, assurance, and maturity insights to refine strategy, standards, investments, organizational capability, and portfolio priorities.
- Provide the SVP and executive forums with a clear view of RMS health, material exposure, decisions required, and progress against the maturity roadmap.
Lead Organizational Capability and Executive Talent
- Build and lead a high-performing organization of Directors, senior technical leaders, and professional teams accountable for RMS capabilities and outcomes.
- Lead through other leaders, establishing clear accountability for strategy, standards, technical quality, portfolio adoption, assurance, talent, and business results.
- Design the organization, leadership structure, capability model, and resource strategy required to operate and scale RMS effectively.
- Develop senior leaders who can independently make sound decisions, influence across functions, and represent RMS in executive and operational forums.
- Build succession depth for critical leadership and technical-accountability roles and reduce reliance on individual expertise or informal relationships.
- Create a culture of operational discipline, constructive challenge, learning, accountability, candor, and continuous improvement.
Exercise Enterprise Influence and Financial Stewardship
- Represent RMS and North America reliability priorities in executive, regional, global, customer, vendor, and strategic-partner discussions.
- Align senior leaders across Operations, Engineering, Technology, Construction, Commissioning, Design, Procurement, Finance, and partner organizations around common reliability outcomes and decision principles.
- Resolve consequential cross-functional issues where ownership, risk tolerance, investment priorities, technical direction, or operating requirements conflict.
- Own the RMS operating budget and multi-year resource plan, where assigned, and develop investment cases for capabilities, technology, services, and organizational growth.
- Establish strategic expectations for critical vendors and partners, including capability, performance, commercial alignment, risk, escalation, and long-term value.
- Ensure RMS priorities are integrated into regional planning, capital and operating decisions, workforce strategy, technology roadmaps, and portfolio governance.
Demonstrate Executive Accountability
- Make timely, risk-informed decisions within delegated authority and escalate matters with material enterprise, customer, financial, safety, or availability implications.
- Hold leaders accountable for adopted standards, committed outcomes, corrective-action closure, organizational capability, and sustained performance.
- Communicate complex reliability, engineering, risk, and investment matters in clear executive terms, including the decision required and consequences of available options.
- Demonstrate and promote the Vantage Values of Trust, Accountability, Respect, and Agility.
- Perform additional duties as assigned by management.
Job Requirements
Required Qualifications
- Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Operations, Reliability, Quality, Asset Management, or a related discipline, or equivalent practical experience.
- Typically 15 or more years of progressive leadership experience in mission-critical data centers or comparable high-reliability, high-availability, or capital-intensive operating environments.
- Significant executive leadership experience building, implementing, or transforming enterprise-scale reliability, operational excellence, asset management, quality, assurance, or management systems.
- Demonstrated success owning a multi-year strategy, operating model, portfolio roadmap, governance system, and measurable business outcomes across a geographically distributed organization.
- Proven experience leading through Directors and senior technical leaders and building organizational capability, accountability, succession depth, and leadership effectiveness.
- Deep understanding of critical electrical, mechanical, controls, and supporting infrastructure systems and the operating risks associated with mission-critical environments.
- Deep knowledge of reliability engineering, maintenance strategy, operational controls, incident learning, root cause analysis, asset lifecycle management, assurance, and risk governance.
- Experience establishing enterprise standards, decision rights, performance systems, maturity models, management reviews, and corrective-action mechanisms.
- Demonstrated ability to make consequential decisions and recommendations involving reliability, safety, customer commitments, investment, operating risk, and long-term portfolio performance.
- Experience translating telemetry, maintenance history, asset condition, incident data, assurance findings, and operational performance into executive priorities and investment decisions.
- Strong financial and commercial acumen, including experience with operating budgets, investment cases, resource planning, vendor strategy, and risk-based tradeoffs.
- Proven ability to align and influence senior executives and functional leaders across a complex matrix without direct operational control.
- Exceptional executive communication and presence, including the ability to frame complex issues, alternatives, risk, and recommended decisions clearly.
- Demonstrated ability to lead large-scale transformation while maintaining operational practicality, adoption, accountability, and sustained results.
Preferred Qualifications
- Advanced degree in Engineering, Business Administration, Reliability, Operations, Asset Management, or a related discipline.
- Experience in hyperscale, wholesale colocation, cloud infrastructure, utilities, aviation, nuclear, advanced manufacturing, or another high-reliability environment.
- Experience with FMEA, RCM, RCA or RCFA, condition-based maintenance, asset management systems, management of change, and operational assurance programs.
- Familiarity with ISO-based management systems, reliability frameworks, asset-management standards, and operational risk methodologies.
- Experience using telemetry, analytics, automation, and AI-enabled insight to improve reliability, maintenance effectiveness, risk identification, and decision quality.
- Relevant professional credentials in engineering, reliability, asset management, quality, operations, or enterprise
Success Profile
- Establish RMS as the trusted management system for reliability and availability across North America.
- Create clear accountability, decision rights, standards, controls, and management mechanisms across RMS capabilities and partner functions.
- Improve portfolio reliability, maintainability, operational readiness, and the visibility and management of systemic risk.
- Reduce repeat events by converting incident learning, reliability evidence, and assurance findings into effective and sustained portfolio changes.
- Create a controlled, scalable, and usable body of operating standards, maintenance requirements, technical processes, and reliability practices.
- Improve executive decision quality by connecting operational evidence, telemetry, asset condition, risk, customer impact, investment, and business outcomes.
- Establish a risk-based assurance and maturity model that provides an objective view of adoption, control effectiveness, and sustained performance.
- Build an effective leadership organization with clear accountability, strong succession depth, and the capability to scale as the portfolio grows.
- Align Site Operations and partner functions around common reliability outcomes without transferring day-to-day operating accountability from Site Operations.
- Demonstrate measurable value from RMS investments, organizational capability, vendor strategies, technology enablement, and portfolio improvement priorities.
Role Boundaries
- The Vice President owns the Reliability Management System, including its strategy, governance, standards, controls, capability, assurance, and performance framework.
- The Senior Vice President, Enterprise Operational Excellence retains accountability for the broader Enterprise Operational Excellence operating model and executive direction.
- Site Operations retains accountability for day-to-day facility operations, safe execution, customer commitments, and site-level outcomes.
- Functional and technical owners retain accountability for execution within their assigned disciplines. RMS defines the integrated system, required controls, and portfolio expectations and assures their effectiveness.
Physical Demands and Special Requirements
The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions. While performing the duties of this job, the employee is occasionally required to stand; walk; sit; use hands to handle, or feel objects; reach with hands and arms; climb stairs; balance; stoop or kneel; talk and hear. The employee must occasionally lift and/or move up to 25 pounds.
Additional Details
- Salary Range: $260,000 - 280,000 Base + Bonus (this range is based on Colorado market data and may vary in other locations)
- This position is eligible for company benefits including but not limited to medical, dental, and vision coverage, life and AD&D, short and long-term disability coverage, paid time off, employee assistance, participation in a 401k program that includes company match, and many other additional voluntary benefits
- Compensation for the role will depend on a number of factors, including your qualifications, skills, competencies, and experience and may fall outside of the range shown.
#LI-Hybrid #LI-AH
We operate with No Ego and No Arrogance. We work to build each other up and support one another, appreciating each other’s strengths and respecting each other’s weaknesses. We find joy in our work and each other, actively seeking opportunities to inject fun into what we do. Our hard and efficient work is rewarded with an above market total compensation package. We offer a comprehensive suite of health and welfare, retirement, and paid leave benefits exceeding local expectations.
Throughout the year, the advantage of being part of the Vantage team is evident with an array of benefits, recognition, training and development, and the knowledge that your contribution adds value to the company and our community.
Don't meet all the requirements? Please still apply if you think you are the right person for the position. We are always keen to speak to people who connect with our mission and values.
Vantage is an Equal Opportunity Employer.
Vantage does not accept unsolicited resumes from search firm agencies. Fees will not be paid in the event a candidate submitted by a recruiter without an agreement in place is hired; such resumes will be deemed the sole property of Vantage.
We’ll be accepting applications for at least one week from the date this role is posted. If you're interested, we encourage you to apply soon—we’re excited to find the right person and will keep the role open until we do!
