Senior Critical Operations Manager (Australia)

Company Overview STACK Infrastructure builds, owns, and operates hyperscale and colocation data centers that power the world’s most ambitious technology companies. With a rapidly expanding footprint across APAC, STACK combines deep development expertise, flexible capital, and operational discipline to deliver critical digital infrastructure at scale. Our clients include the largest hyperscale cloud platforms. We are building a regional platform defined by speed of delivery, power reliability, and long-term partnership — and we are assembling the team to lead that effort. Summary/Objective The Senior Critical Operations Manager is the senior operational leader for the data centre campus, responsible for the day-to-day performance, safety and reliability of all mission-critical operations. Reporting to the Site Director, this role oversees the Critical Operations Manager, Assistant Critical Operations Manager, and the Facilities Management team including the 24/7 workforce to ensure consistent, safe and resilient operation of all critical infrastructure. The Senior Critical Operations Manager is accountable for driving operational excellence across all shifts, leading incident and risk management, and uplifting and maintaining operational processes, procedures, policies and document control. The role will participate in, and at times lead, operational readiness activities in partnership with the Readiness/Operational Projects function. This role directly supports STACK’s commitment to 100% uptime and a concierge-level customer service experience , ensuring risk is proactively managed, planned works are executed safely, and customer communications are clear, timely and professional. Acting as the Site Director’s primary operational delegate, the Senior Critical Operations Manager provides leadership continuity, clear communication, and consistent execution of operational standards across the site. Essential Functions Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform these essential functions. Critical Operations Leadership • Set the operational tone for the campus and embed a safety-first culture across all shifts, contractors and stakeholders. • Provide day-to-day leadership to COM, ACOM, FM and 24/7 technical teams to ensure consistent, safe and resilient operations. • Ensure the 24/7 performance of all mechanical, electrical, fire life safety and control systems to maintain uninterrupted service and meet all SLAs, certifications and legislative requirements. • Act as the Site Director’s operational delegate when required, ensuring continuity of decision-making, escalation management and customer communication. Incident, Risk and Change Governance • Lead incident management and problem management end-to-end, including escalation, risk-based decision-making, customer and executive communications, and the quality of PIR/RCA outputs through to corrective action closure. • Maintain the site risk register, hazard identification processes and risk review cadence, ensuring risks are visible, owned and mitigated. • Govern change control for planned works and live-site interventions, ensuring appropriate outage windows, hold points, rollback strategies and customer approvals. Maintenance and Planned Works • Oversee maintenance planning and execution, including review and approval of MOPs, SOPs and EOPs, permit-to-work processes, isolations/LOTO, SWMS and vendor method statements. • Own scheduling and prioritisation of planned works and minor/medium projects, resolving conflicts across customer commitments, risk and operational constraints. • Ensure accurate and timely operational reporting on availability, incidents, risks, maintenance compliance, planned works and action tracking. Contractor and Vendor Management • Provide governance and quality oversight of contractor and vendor activities, including safety leadership, performance management, service reviews and continuous improvement actions. • Ensure service partners remain aligned to STACK standards, scope and behaviours, and are held accountable to KPIs and SLAs. Operational Readiness and Continuous Improvement • Uplift, implement and maintain operational processes, procedures, policies and document control to drive standardisation, audit readiness and continuous improvement across all shifts. • Ensure operational readiness requirements are met for new systems, upgrades and transitions (documentation, asset registers, CMMS updates, spares, tooling and training). • Provide oversight of operational projects impacting live operations, ensuring safe execution, quality outcomes and compliance with operational standards. Customer Engagement and Communication • Act as a senior operational contact for customers, hosting forums, presenting updates, coordinating planned works communications and maintaining confidence during incidents. • Ensure communications are clear, timely and accurate across internal stakeholders, customers and leadership. People and Culture • Set clear expectations and performance standards for COM, ACOM, FM and 24/7 teams, aligned to STACK values and behaviours. • Coach, mentor and develop team capability across all shifts, including succession planning, training coverage and role readiness. • Drive effective cross-shift communication and structured handovers to ensure alignment on priorities and consistent execution. Competencies • 7-10 years’ leadership in mission-critical operations with demonstrated ownership of 24/7 environments. • Strong technical understanding of electrical, mechanical, fire life safety and control systems in data centres or equivalent critical facilities. • Proven incident leadership, including high-quality PIR/RCA delivery and action close-out. • Deep governance across maintenance planning, change control, permit-to-work, risk assessments and method statement review. • High customer service capability; confident presenting operational updates and managing planned works communications. • Strong contractor and vendor management capability with a focus on safety, performance and continuous improvement. • Competent with CMMS, monitoring platforms and incident/change/problem management systems. • Excellent organisation, prioritisation and decision-making across competing live-site demands. • Advanced written and verbal communication skills suitable for executive and customer audiences. Work Environment / Conditions Working onsite at STACK Data Centres in Victoria, Australia, including plant rooms, equipment spaces and live operating environments. Travel Required • Minimal routine travel; occasional travel between local STACK facilities as operational needs require. • Occasional interstate or international travel may be required. Required Education and Experience • Significant experience leading multidisciplinary technical teams in data centres or other mission-critical environments with 24/7 operations. • Demonstrated track record managing incidents, risks, maintenance and planned works in live environments. • Proficiency in operational reporting, stakeholder communication and customer engagement. • Strong working knowledge of CMMS, monitoring and incident/change/problem management systems. • High competency with Microsoft 365 (Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Teams). Preferred Education and Experience • Bachelor’s degree or equivalent professional experience. • Technical certifications or trade qualifications in electrical, mechanical, controls or related fields. • Experience contributing to operational readiness for new systems and major upgrades. • Experience with vendor performance management, KPI/SLA governance and contract service reviews. Additional Eligibility Requirements • Willingness to work outside standard business hours, including weekends, public holidays, nights and on-call coverage as required. • Comfortable working in a fast-paced, high-pressure environment with shifting priorities. • Ongoing compliance with STACK policies, procedures and behavioural standards. Work Authorisation/Security Clearance Requirements • Must be able to attain and hold NV1 security clearance. Equal Opportunity Employer STACK provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment and prohibits discrimination and harassment of any type without regard to race, colour, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by applicable federal, state or local laws. This policy applies to all terms and conditions of employment, including recruitment, hiring, placement, promotion, termination, redundancy, recall, transfer, leaves of absence, compensation and training. Other Duties Please note that this job description is not designed to cover or contain a comprehensive listing of activities, duties or responsibilities required of the employee for this role. Duties, responsibilities and activities may change at any time with or without notice.