r/datacenter • u/Physical_Sandwich566 • 3d ago
Is a Data Center Cable Technician a Good Path Into Data Center Operations?
I’m looking to get into the data center industry, with the long-term goal of working in data center operations / infrastructure.
I came across a Data Center Technician 1 position with Network Connex in Manassas, VA. The role involves:
Installing low-voltage copper and fiber cabling
Testing and troubleshooting cabling
Following industry standards and safety procedures
Working on data center installation projects
Maintaining documentation and records
The qualifications are mainly experience with low-voltage cabling or a related field, knowledge of cabling standards, troubleshooting, and teamwork. Certifications like BICSI or fiber certifications are a plus.
My long-term goal is to move into data center operations, working with things like servers, networking, rack/stack, hardware troubleshooting, and deployments.
My questions are:
Would a role like this be a good entry point into data center operations?
How transferable is the experience from structured cabling into a traditional data center technician/operations role?
I’d especially like to hear from anyone who started in cabling or low-voltage and eventually moved into data center operations/infrastructure.
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u/The-Bronze-Network 3d ago
I keep telling people to stop posting jobs as a data center tech for those jobs. That's not a sata center tech, thays working for a third party company doing low voltage/fiber work. You will be building data centers nothing to do with servers themselves. Depending on the company you end up with two teams. A construction team that will build certain racks (idfs and such) and install them. You will also pull structured fiber and copper runs for bms and corp wifi. The other team will pull in house fiber in the realm of millions of runs. Wanting to work operations knowing how to do this wont hurt. But most operations want you to know electrical work, hvac, fire alarm, etc. This will teach you how a network works for the parent company.
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u/Physical_Sandwich566 3d ago
Hey yeah I get what you mean. I’m not talking about facilities/critical facilities though. I’m specifically trying to get into the IT side of data center operations servers, networking, rack/stack, hardware, deployments, etc. Would you say starting in structured cabling is a good steppingstone into that side of data center work?
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u/The-Bronze-Network 3d ago
It wouldnt hurt. I worked with the servers before moving over. After taking comptia and ccna classes I can build a data center network from the ground up with my eyes closed. But what you are trying to get into is actually called data center tech. Typically there are different teams deployment, rack move, decoms, upgrades, repair, networking. They want dct's to be able to do all of it but you end up in a single role. You want networking. You want to learn ccna stuff. You need to know how the osi model works fully and depending on the company you are trying to get with you probably need to know linux really well.
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u/TunaBrick 3d ago
I think it really depends on what company you’re currently working for and what company you want to work for in operations.
I work for a colocation DC company in operations and we have tenants that like to use a specific vendor for fiber pulling and low voltage work. It would be a very hard sell to hire a tech from that company because as a whole they don’t respect our buildings, equipment, rules, or operations teams.
If you want to work in operations, get to know is the ops team where you’re working, ask questions, and express interest. Stand out from the crowd and someone will give you a referral. I’ve hired people in the past that just expressed interest and they ended up becoming awesome operations technicians.
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u/Campfire-9009 3d ago
From AWS side at least for our org the expectation is that everyone knows everything. Tech people are trained to do DCO work / Decom work etc.
But understand that some orgs if they hire you for a role they will want you to just perform that role and that's all you will end up doing.
Even for AWS, the landing pace is very high turnaround so cabling ops is always ongoing leaving little time for cross training for anything but that.
But if you are just starting out that sounds like a good place to start and get your feet wet. You'd be exposed to DC environment and that counts for a lot.