Controls Manager
Job Description
THE COMPANY:
STACK INFRASTRUCTURE (STACK) provides digital infrastructure to scale the world’s most innovative companies. We are an award-winning industry leader in building, owning, and operating highly efficient, cost-effective wholesale, colocation, and cloud data centers. Each of our national facilities meets or exceeds the highest industry standards in all operational categories of availability, security, connectivity, and physical resilience.
STACK offers the scale and geographic reach that rapidly growing hyperscale and enterprise companies need. The world runs on data. Data runs on STACK.
THE POSITION:
STACK is seeking a Controls Manager to join our Technical Operations team and lead the Controls Engineering function at our new data center facilities in New Mexico. This position will oversee a team of Controls Engineers responsible for the construction support, commissioning, operation, troubleshooting, maintenance, and continuous improvement of BMS, EPMS, PLC, SCADA, and OT data systems across a large, mission-critical campus.
The Controls Manager will serve as the site technical leader for controls and monitoring systems, ensuring reliable, scalable, and secure performance across mechanical, electrical, and plant control infrastructure. This role will work closely with site operations, engineering, construction, commissioning teams, vendors, IT, cybersecurity, network teams, and internal stakeholders to ensure controls systems are delivered, operated, and maintained to STACK standards.
This position requires both strong technical depth and people leadership. The Controls Manager will establish priorities for the Controls Engineering team, drive standards and best practices, mentor engineers, support critical issue resolution, and ensure the site has the controls expertise needed to operate safely and reliably at scale.
KEY RESPONSIBILITIES:
Lead, manage, and develop a team of Controls Engineers supporting building automation, industrial controls, SCADA, PLCs, EPMS, and OT data systems.
Establish priorities, workload management, escalation paths, and technical expectations for the Controls Engineering team.
Serve as the site subject matter expert and technical owner for controls and monitoring systems across mechanical, electrical, and campus-level infrastructure.
Develop a comprehensive understanding of site mechanical, electrical, controls, and monitoring architectures, including chilled water plant controls, plant operation, electrical distribution monitoring, and campus-level system integration.
Oversee implementation, commissioning, operation, troubleshooting, and optimization of PLC-based controls systems across mission-critical mechanical and electrical infrastructure.
Provide leadership for Ignition front-end systems, including screens, tags, alarms, historian functions, user interfaces, integrations, reporting, standards, and long-term maintainability.
Oversee MQTT-based data movement, edge messaging, enterprise messaging infrastructure, and related controls system integrations.
Support database-backed controls, monitoring, alarming, reporting, analytics, and operational data workflows.
Lead controls-related troubleshooting, root cause analysis, corrective actions, and lessons learned for building automation, PLC, SCADA, EPMS, power monitoring, and OT integration issues.
Ensure integration and validation of power quality meters, including devices configured for continuous waveform monitoring, event capture, power quality analysis, and electrical system diagnostics.
Partner with commissioning agents, contractors, vendors, and internal engineering teams to verify system performance, sequence execution, alarm behavior, trend collection, data integrity, and turnover documentation.
Oversee site operations support related to control logic, plant staging, pumping sequences, valve control, temperature control, differential pressure strategies, and system performance.
Drive operational readiness, site acceptance testing, integrated systems testing, and turnover of controls and monitoring systems from construction to operations.
Ensure proper metering, trending, and data collection to support operational reporting, energy efficiency, reliability tracking, long-term optimization, and fleet-level reporting requirements.
Partner with IT, cybersecurity, network, and monitoring teams to support secure and reliable connectivity for OT systems, PLCs, SCADA servers, MQTT brokers, databases, and field devices.
Establish and maintain controls documentation standards, including sequence documentation, PLC logic records, Ignition standards, tag governance, alarm rationalization, network/interface documentation, and turnover packages.
Lead training, coaching, and knowledge-sharing for site operations personnel and Controls Engineers on system functionality, alarm response, data interpretation, troubleshooting procedures, and operational best practices.
Support development and continuous improvement of controls architecture, PLC programming practices, Ignition development, data modeling, alarm management, documentation, and operational procedures.
Coordinate vendor and contractor support to ensure issues are resolved effectively, deliverables meet STACK requirements, and systems remain aligned with long-term operational needs.
Support off-hours troubleshooting, maintenance windows, emergency response, and critical operational events as needed.
THE DETAILS:
Location: Santa Teresa, New Mexico; On-site
Benefits: Healthcare, Dental, Vision, Life Insurance, Paid Time Off, Paid Leave Programs
Travel: Up to 15% domestically
Must be eligible to work in the United States
Must pass comprehensive background screening
MUST-HAVE QUALIFICATIONS:
Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Controls, Computer Science, or equivalent practical experience.
8+ years of experience with building automation, industrial controls, SCADA, PLCs, EPMS, or mission-critical facility control systems.
3+ years of leadership experience managing engineers, technical specialists, controls technicians, automation teams, vendors, or multi-disciplinary technical resources.
Hands-on experience with Allen-Bradley PLCs, including PLC logic review, troubleshooting, field validation, and integration with supervisory systems.
Experience with Ignition SCADA, including tag structures, alarm configuration, graphics, historian functions, scripting, reporting, and system integration.
Strong understanding of mechanical systems, especially chilled water systems, chiller plants, pumping systems, heat rejection, and hydronic loops.
Familiarity with electrical monitoring systems, power quality meters, and EPMS concepts in mission-critical environments.
Experience with industrial communication protocols and integration methods, including some combination of EtherNet/IP, Modbus TCP, BACnet, SNMP, MQTT, and OPC UA.
Ability to lead troubleshooting of complex controls issues involving PLCs, SCADA, network connectivity, field devices, sensors, actuators, meters, databases, and operational systems.
Demonstrated ability to build standards, develop repeatable processes, manage technical documentation, and drive consistency across complex systems.
Strong leadership, communication, and stakeholder management skills with the ability to engage engineering, construction, operations, vendors, executives, and non-technical stakeholders.
Must be comfortable working in a high-stress, fast-paced mission-critical environment with shifting priorities.
Must be willing to support off-hours troubleshooting, maintenance windows, emergency response, and critical operational events as needed.
PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS:
Experience supporting hyperscale, semiconductor, industrial, utility, or other large-scale mission-critical campuses.
Ignition certification or advanced Ignition development experience.
Experience with enterprise MQTT broker platforms.
Experience with SEL power quality meters and relays.
Working knowledge of SQL databases, preferably PostgreSQL, for data collection, reporting, analytics, and controls system integration.
Understanding of OT cybersecurity concepts, network segmentation, authentication, certificate management, and secure access practices.
Compensation Range:
$182,000.00 - $204,000.00THIS MIGHT BE RIGHT FOR YOU IF:
You are a strong communicator, you are persuasive and clear, blending analytics with experience in decision-making.
You do not get flustered easily. You can juggle multiple priorities while balancing urgent requests with shifting timelines and deliverables.
You are a team builder. You take the time to understand and develop the strengths of your resources while formulating long-term plans for the growth and success of the team.
You are naturally curious and driven toward continual improvement. While you celebrate your successes, you take time to review and analyze campaigns for future learning.
WHY STACK?
We offer a competitive compensation package with strong benefits, including medical, dental, and vision insurance, a 401K program, flexible spending accounts – even a cell phone subsidy.
We foster a culture of appreciation, including peer-to-peer recognition and rewards programs.
Fun is part of our DNA, with events, game nights, happy hours, and barbecues.
We’re growing – this is a great time to join and make an impact!
STACK is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, age, national origin, mental or physical disability, genetic information, veteran status, or any other status protected by federal, state, or local law
Note to external agencies: We are not accepting any blind submissions or resumes/cvs from recruitment agencies. Any candidates sent to STACK Infrastructure, Inc. will not be accepted or considered as a submission without a signed agreement in place. 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 STACK Infrastructure, Inc.