Senior Data Center Preconstruction Manager

Role Overview

Fermi America is seeking a Senior Data Center Preconstruction Manager to own the integrated schedule development, cost planning, and construction readiness process for Fermi’s hyperscale data center program. This role is responsible for ensuring that every building package transitions from design into construction with a fully vetted scope, budget, schedule, and execution plan.

The DC Sr Preconstruction Manager will lead preconstruction activities across concurrent building phases—driving GMP development, contractor bid processes, scope alignment, and schedule integration. This role is the connective tissue between design, procurement, construction, and project controls, ensuring that decisions made in preconstruction translate into predictable field execution.

This role reports directly to the Head of DC Service & Delivery and works in close coordination with the Director of DC Construction, DC Sr Technical Manager, Sr DC Design Integration Manager, procurement, safety, quality, and project controls functions. This is a matrix environment where success depends on influence and partnership as much as direct authority. The right leader builds strong, collaborative relationships across every function and fosters a culture of transparency, shared accountability, and mutual respect.

Key Responsibilities

• Own the end-to-end preconstruction process for all data center building packages—from initial scope definition through GMP execution and construction mobilization

• Develop and maintain integrated preconstruction schedules that align design milestones, procurement timelines, permitting, and construction start dates across concurrent building phases

• Lead GMP development and negotiation with general contractors and trade partners, ensuring competitive pricing, clear scope definition, and appropriate risk allocation

• Drive construction readiness reviews to verify that design packages, permits, long-lead equipment, and subcontractor commitments are in place before authorizing construction starts

• Manage preconstruction budgets and cost estimates, maintaining alignment between target budgets, GMP values, and actual commitments as packages progress

• Coordinate with the Sr DC Design Integration Manager to ensure design deliverables support preconstruction timelines and that scope gaps are identified and resolved early

• Establish standardized preconstruction workflows, templates, and checklists that can be replicated across successive building phases to reduce cycle times and improve predictability

• Partner with procurement to align contractor sourcing, bid leveling, and commercial strategies with preconstruction schedules and budget targets

• Lead change order management processes during the preconstruction-to-construction transition, ensuring cost and schedule impacts are documented and approved before work proceeds

• Lead and embed commercial strategy into every building package—driving contract structure decisions, risk allocation frameworks, incentive mechanisms, and pricing strategies that align commercial terms with construction execution goals and Fermi’s financial objectives

• Identify, assess, and mitigate preconstruction risks across scope, cost, schedule, permitting, and contractor capacity—maintaining risk registers, leading risk workshops with cross-functional teams, and building mitigation strategies into every GMP package before authorizing construction starts

• Provide preconstruction status reporting to leadership, including schedule health, budget tracking, risk registers, and risk/opportunity assessments

• Interface with the tenant’s design team on preconstruction scope alignment, design criteria, and technical requirements to ensure building packages reflect tenant needs while maintaining Fermi’s design standards and delivery commitments

• Build and sustain a strong, collaborative culture across the preconstruction function—fostering open communication, mutual accountability, and trust with construction, design, procurement, and project controls partners

AI-Enabled Execution Philosophy

Fermi America integrates artificial intelligence and advanced analytics into its core project delivery workflows. The DC Sr Preconstruction Manager will be expected to embrace and champion this philosophy, including:

• Utilizing AI-powered schedule analysis to identify sequencing conflicts, resource constraints, and critical path risks across concurrent preconstruction packages before they materialize in the field

• Leveraging AI-driven cost benchmarking and estimating tools to validate GMP proposals, identify cost outliers, and improve bid leveling accuracy across contractor proposals

• Deploying automated reporting workflows powered by AI to generate preconstruction status dashboards, variance analyses, and risk summaries for leadership review

• Championing the use of AI-assisted document analysis for scope reviews, specification gap identification, and contract clause comparison to accelerate preconstruction decision-making

• Partnering with project controls to develop predictive models that forecast construction cost and schedule outcomes based on preconstruction data, historical performance, and market conditions

• Driving the adoption of AI tools for lessons learned capture and pattern recognition across completed building phases, feeding insights back into preconstruction standards for continuous improvement