Data Center Contracts and Commercial Strategy Lead (AI Infrastructure)

Location: Hybrid; presence required four days per week at the San Francisco office on Fremont Street, San Jose office on Zanker, or Bellevue office. Tuesday is the designated work-from-home day.

Annual salary: $252,000–$336,000 in San Francisco or San Jose; $227,000–$302,000 in Bellevue.

Company

AI cloud infrastructure company serving AI researchers, enterprises, and hyperscalers with compute infrastructure.

What you will do

• Own the contracting and commercial strategy for leased, colocation, and owned greenfield data center capacity.
• Lead negotiations and execution of leases, colocation and service agreements, master agreements, design, equipment, and construction contracts.
• Manage the lease portfolio, including renewals, expansions, amendments, restructurings, exits, obligations, milestones, and landlord performance.
• Protect delivery schedules through service dates, delay credits, step-in rights, milestones, SLAs, and supplier accountability.
• Run competitive bids and RFPs, recommend awards, and establish agreements with providers, OEMs, design firms, and contractors.
• Set contracting standards and governance while partnering with Data Center Development, Construction, Design, Capacity Planning, Finance, Legal, and Operations and briefing executives.

Requirements

• 10+ years of experience in data center or complex infrastructure contracting, commercial real estate or capacity leasing, strategic sourcing, or procurement.
• Bachelor’s degree in Business, Finance, Real Estate, Supply Chain Management, Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent experience.
• Recognized lead negotiator with personal experience closing large, complex agreements, typically valued at $100M or more.
• Experience negotiating data center leases or colocation agreements and understanding how landlords and providers price, structure, and deliver capacity, or experience negotiating construction, design, or equipment contracts and understanding GC, EPC, EPCM, design-build, lump sum, GMP, and cost-plus models.
• Understanding of the data center lifecycle, including land, power and utilities, design, equipment, construction, and commissioning, and how each affects deliverability.
• Experience managing contracts after signature, including renewals, amendments, change orders, claims, and closeout.
• Experience establishing process, policy, or governance standards adopted by an organization.
• Ability to brief and persuade executives and build business cases for decisions.
• Ability to operate in ambiguity and on compressed timelines while managing parallel deals in a supply-constrained market.

Nice to have

• Experience securing capacity for hyperscalers, AI clouds, or large GPU/HPC deployments.
• Experience on the landlord, developer, colocation provider, or contractor side.
• Experience with complex construction programs such as semiconductor, oil and gas, or energy.
• Experience establishing a contracts or sourcing function where little previously existed.

Culture & Benefits

• Generous cash and equity compensation.
• Health, dental, and vision coverage for employees and dependents.
• Wellness and commuter stipends for select roles.
• 401(k) plan with a 2% company match for USA employees.
• Flexible paid time off plan.