Lead Data Center Engineer

About Nu

Nu is the leading digital bank in Latin America, serving 135 million customers across Brazil, Mexico, and Colombia. The company has been leading an industry transformation by leveraging data and proprietary technology to develop innovative products and services.

Guided by its mission to fight complexity and empower people, Nu caters to customers’ complete financial journey, promoting financial access and advancement with responsible lending and transparency. The company is powered by an efficient and scalable business model that combines low cost to serve with growing returns.

Nu’s impact has been recognized in multiple awards, including Time 100 Most Influential Companies, Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies, and Forbes World’s Best Banks.

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About the role

We are looking for a Lead Data Center Engineer to be the technical anchor for Nubank’s physical infrastructure and data center operations, ensuring reliability, scalability, and standardization across our global colocation footprint. The Data Center Eng team owns the physical layer of our infrastructure – from power, cooling, fire protection, security systems to structured cabling and operations – in data centers and technical rooms that host Nubank’s platforms.

As a key lead you will be a main point of contact for solving complex infrastructure inquiries, connecting multiple projects and stakeholders, and guiding the standardization of contracts, technical requirements, equipment, and documentation across all our data centers.

As a Lead Data Center Engineer, You'll be Responsible For

• Leading the technical direction of Nubank’s physical infrastructure and data center operations, acting as the main technical reference for the team on all infrastructure-related questions (power, cooling, space, cabling, safety, standards).
• Owning standardization across all data centers in terms of contracts, technical and operational requirements, equipment, and processes, ensuring a consistent, high-maturity setup in every site.
• Designing and maintaining robust, senior-level documentation (standards, procedures, runbooks, capacity, topology), making sure it is clear, up to date, and usable by different stakeholders across Nubank.
• Acting as the primary interface between Nubank teams and external data center providers, translating business needs into infrastructure requirements, work orders, change requests, and negotiations with vendors.
• Coordinating the design and deployment of infrastructure in third‑party data centers (space, racks, cages, power, cooling, cabling), ensuring compliance with Nubank’s safety, redundancy, and performance requirements – always focused on managing our space in colocation sites, not building our own data centers from scratch.
• Ensuring alignment between physical infrastructure and IT operations, including service installation, cabling changes, capacity planning, and estimating provider hours needed to deploy or modify environments.
• Supporting the manager in leading the team technically, helping to decompose work, review solutions, mentor engineers, and be the first escalation point for complex technical decisions so the manager can focus on strategy and broader topics.
• Interconnecting projects and maintaining standards across multiple data centers, making sure that, over time, all sites converge to the same level of standardization and quality in terms of infrastructure, contracts, and documentation.
• Driving continuous improvements in availability, resilience, and efficiency of our physical infrastructure (power systems, generators, UPS, cooling, fire protection, structured cabling, and more), in close collaboration with providers and internal stakeholders.
• Contributing to training and knowledge sharing within the team, helping to design and follow up on technical training, and creating clarity on expectations and standards for the broader group.

We Are Looking for a Person Who Has

• Bachelor’s degree in Engineering (Mechanical, Electrical, Control/Automation, or related fields).
• 8–10 years of experience in data center and technical room environments, including deployment and operations of physical infrastructure and IT infrastructure in colocation or enterprise data centers.
• Solid, hands-on experience with physical infrastructure systems such as power distribution, generators, UPS, cooling/HVAC, fire detection and suppression, and structured cabling in data centers.
• Proven experience working closely with data center IT operations (service installation, cabling changes, capacity planning, provider work orders and hours, and environment deployment activities).
• Demonstrated ability to act as a technical lead / anchor for a team, being the person others go to first for infrastructure questions and decisions, and ensuring consistent technical standards across multiple sites or projects.
• Strong track record of creating and maintaining clear, robust, senior-level technical documentation for infrastructure standards, procedures, and designs.
• Availability and interest to work based in São Paulo, Brazil, in a hybrid set‑up, with close proximity to the manager and most of the team.

Nice to have

• Experience in large-scale technology or cloud companies and/or major data center providers, where you developed knowledge about power, cooling, equipment installation, structured cabling and vendor management.
• Experience supporting global, multi-site operations and collaborating with teams distributed across different countries.
• Previous experience mentoring or technically leading small engineering teams, especially in infrastructure or facilities-related contexts.
• Familiarity with financial services or other highly regulated industries and their expectations for reliability, resilience, and risk management.

Location

São Paulo, Brazil

Our Benefits

• Chance of earning equity at Nubank
• Food/ Meal Card (Vale-Refeição and/or Vale Alimentação)
• Public Transportation Commuting Benefit (Vale-Transporte)
• NuCare – Psychological, Financial and Legal Assistance Program
• Life Insurance
• Medical Plan
• Dental Plan
• NuLanguage – Language Course Program
• Nucleo - Our learning platform of courses
• Extended Parental Leave
• Daycare Allowance
• Parental Consultancy
• Work-from-home Allowance
• Gym Partnerships
• 30 days of paid vacation
• Relocation Assistance Package, if applicable

Work Model for this Role

Hybrid 2-3 times/week: Our hybrid work model brings us to the office at least twice a week, on strategic days designed to maximize team connection and collaboration. For more details, visit https://building.nubank.com/nu-hybrid-work-model/

Our recruitment process may involve the use of artificial intelligence–enabled tools, such as automated interview transcription and analysis, to support the evaluation process. Artificial intelligence is not used to make final hiring decisions; all decisions are made by human reviewers.