As data center developers confront tighter power supplies, longer interconnection timelines, and growing scrutiny over who should pay for the grid infrastructure required to serve large loads, those pressures are beginning to reshape another part of the development equation: talent.
As states and utilities reconsider how the costs of serving large data center loads should be allocated, the implications are extending into project planning and hiring. In Virginia, for example, the State Corporation Commission has directed Dominion Energy to submit alternative cost-allocation proposals for generation and transmission services to better reflect the growth of large-load customers. Similar debates over large-load interconnection, infrastructure, and cost responsibility are playing out across major data center markets.
For developers, utilities, engineering firms, and investors, that changing landscape is broadening the expertise needed well before construction begins. Power systems engineers, utility interconnection specialists, transmission professionals, project developers, commissioning specialists, and people who understand both energy markets and data center development are increasingly competing for attention alongside the traditional engineering and construction workforce.
LVI Associates, a specialist recruitment firm focused on energy and infrastructure, is seeing the effects of those power and development pressures across two distinct parts of the talent market.
Grace Søhoel-Goldberg, senior vice president at LVI Associates, leads the firm’s Architecture & Building Services recruitment division. Based in Boston, she works with engineering, construction, and data center organizations across mechanical, electrical, and plumbing (MEP), information and communications technology (ICT), commissioning, energy efficiency, and other building-services markets.
Grace Simpson, also a senior vice president at LVI Associates in Boston, specializes in executive and strategic hiring across renewable energy and power generation in North America. Her work includes project development and origination searches for independent power producers (IPPs), developers, utilities, and energy investors across conventional generation, renewable energy, battery energy storage systems (BESS), transmission infrastructure, and increasingly data center development.
POWER asked Søhoel-Goldberg and Simpson how power constraints are changing data center hiring, where talent shortages are becoming most acute, and what companies are paying to secure people with the right combination of power and data center experience.
The following interview has been lightly edited for clarity.
POWER: As power availability has become a deciding factor in data center site selection, how has that changed who companies want to hire first? What roles are moving toward the front of the development process compared with 18 to 24 months ago?
Grace Simpson: Business developers who have connections with data centers and hyperscalers, often called “originators.” However, it’s not the standard origination or offtake profile. They are essentially looking for energy brokers.
Project developers who have experience with conventional power generation and whatever extent of “data center co-location” someone can realistically have at this point.
Grace Søhoel-Goldberg: Rather than thinking about “who’s hiring first,” we’re seeing many of our clients expand their service offerings by adding power systems engineers, utility interconnection specialists, and transmission and distribution professionals so they can position themselves as true end-to-end partners for data center owners.
There’s also been a noticeable convergence of skill sets across the industry. Clients increasingly want MEP engineers who understand utility coordination, power delivery challenges, and grid constraints, not just building systems.
Two years ago, hiring discussions were primarily focused on designing and constructing the data center itself. Today, they often begin with the people who can solve the power equation, because a parcel of land without viable power is no longer considered a viable site.
As a result, power literacy has become critical across the project team. Even engineers whose primary focus isn’t power need to understand its implications, as power availability and infrastructure considerations now influence nearly every aspect of data center development.
POWER: Where are you seeing the strongest data center hiring activity now, and what does that activity tell you about where development may be headed? Are the hiring patterns different between markets?
Søhoel-Goldberg: While I can’t speak as much to utility and power-side hiring trends, on the building and project-delivery side you can often predict where the next wave of data center development is headed before projects are formally announced. Our clients start building talent pipelines well in advance, and hiring activity is often an early indicator of future investment.
We are currently seeing the strongest hiring activity in Ohio and Texas, which aligns with what we’re hearing across the industry. The demand is concentrated around MEP engineering, commissioning, construction management, and owner-side project leadership roles that support large-scale data center delivery.
We’re also seeing firms hire ahead of the curve, adding local leadership and technical talent so they’re positioned to pursue work as these markets expand.
From our perspective, the Ohio markets continue to generate significant demand because developers are still chasing areas with relatively favorable power availability and established data center ecosystems. Texas remains extremely active as well, driven by ongoing hyperscale and artificial intelligence (AI)-related investment.
Comparatively, there’s been less hiring momentum on the building side across many Southeast markets that had buzz earlier this year, likely reflecting some of the uncertainty around where the next major clusters of development will ultimately land.
Part of that appears to be tied to projects being delayed, resized, or reevaluated as developers and end users take a harder look at power availability, transmission timelines, and overall project economics. Some firms that were hiring aggressively six to 12 months ago have become more measured in their hiring plans as certain projects have been pushed out or placed on hold.
POWER: Where are the most acute talent shortages? Which power, engineering, development, or commissioning roles are taking the longest to fill, and why is the candidate pool so limited?
Simpson: Origination profiles have always been a bit trickier because of the various backgrounds these candidates can have, resulting in compensation misalignment as well as a gap in industry experience.
Regarding data center efforts, some shops prefer gas experience to renewables, which especially narrows the pool and results in those two conflicts of compensation and experience level.
When it comes to project development, this can actually be an incredibly narrow talent pool when clients prefer gas or existing data center experience. Hardly anyone in the energy space has real “data center development” experience just yet, as leading up to this year it’s all been strategy and market expansion, securing those partnerships.
Søhoel-Goldberg: On the building side, I’d rank electrical engineers and commissioning professionals as some of the hardest roles to fill right now.
While roles like load forecasters, transmission planners, and interconnection engineers are certainly in high demand, many of those skill sets can be applied across utilities, transmission and distribution, renewable energy, and other infrastructure sectors, which creates a broader talent pool.
The challenge with data center electrical and commissioning talent is how project-specific the experience is. Clients aren’t just looking for someone who understands electrical systems. They want people who have designed hyperscale facilities, understand mission-critical redundancy, coordinated closely with utilities, and can operate in an environment where downtime is simply not an option.
Commissioning is even more specialized. The pool of professionals who have successfully commissioned large-scale data centers, led integrated systems testing, and coordinated across electrical, mechanical, controls, and operations teams is relatively small compared to the volume of projects being delivered.
Unlike many power-sector disciplines, these skill sets can’t easily be transferred from adjacent industries. They are developed through direct experience on mission-critical projects, which is why these searches often run the longest and remain some of the most competitive in the market.
POWER: What is that scarcity doing to compensation? How far are companies going to pull experienced people away from power generators, consulting firms, and other employers?
Simpson: Aside from compensation increases, many of the best candidates are already sitting at the top of the market, and in more complex ways than just base salary and annual bonus.
Many of these candidates are coming from the big gas players that have trading floors, and these candidates are not only compensated higher than their renewable IPP counterparts, but they have tricky long-term incentives that have locked them in for years to come.
Finding a way to make them whole in order to leave has translated to astronomical sign-on bonuses that I’ve never seen in previous years. We’re talking anywhere from $100,000 to $500,000 in cash bonuses, and this seems incredibly natural to those candidates.
Søhoel-Goldberg: On the owner side, we’ve seen compensation increases across the entire spectrum, ranging from no increase at all to as much as a 500% jump.
We recently worked with an electrical engineering candidate who moved from a consulting firm to a hyperscale data center owner and saw their compensation increase from roughly $140,000 to over $600,000. While that’s certainly an outlier, it highlights the reality that many owners, particularly hyperscalers, are willing to pay whatever is necessary to secure critical talent because their margins are often significantly higher than those on the consulting side.
That said, compensation shouldn’t be the only factor candidates consider. One challenge we’ve seen is that some owner organizations can take a more transactional approach to talent, with employees viewed as more expendable than they might be in a consulting environment.
For candidates interested in making the move to the owner side, it’s important to thoroughly vet the organization, understand the culture, evaluate long-term career growth opportunities, and ensure the role aligns with their broader career goals, not just the compensation package.
POWER: Where are companies finding people with the combination of power and data center experience they now want? Are employers looking for specialists, or is demand shifting toward people who can work across generation, development, commercial, and finance functions?
Simpson: To be honest, a lot of shops still don’t know what they need. Oftentimes they describe the need one way and then end up speaking with a series of people and realize they need something entirely different from another corner of the industry.
When it comes to project development, the shops and developers that do both renewables and conventional power generation are of great interest. Most clients are far less interested in people who have just done solar for most of their career.
Since a lot of end users are attracted to gas versus renewables, that gas and co-location experience is of greater interest. But I also think the well-rounded developers who have experience across a variety of complex technologies are of interest because the needs will continue to rapidly evolve over time, so being able to pivot is critical.
Some clients that already have strong gas experience, however, are very attracted to renewables experience because it’s a weak spot of theirs. At the end of the day, most firms are typically looking to round out their team.
I’d say cross-functional people as well who have been at the forefront of project development, commercial or origination, and finance functions. Someone who understands the complex economics of these projects and can shake hands with the right end users. The profile is more dynamic and not just singular expertise.
POWER: Looking ahead, where are data center developers and owners underinvesting in talent today? Which capabilities do you think companies will wish they had built internally a year from now?
Simpson: Probably someone running operations or internal business strategy in relation to these hiring needs. Someone who is actually putting more intentional thought toward how to build the right organization for these efforts.
This and perhaps the regulatory, permitting, and government affairs roles that are driving advocacy at the local, state, and federal level. Many of these projects are facing opposition.
Søhoel-Goldberg: One area many data center developers and owners are underinvesting in today is internal leadership and organizational development.
Over the last few years, companies have been so focused on scaling project delivery that they’ve hired a tremendous number of technical contributors, but many haven’t spent enough time developing the next layer of leaders beneath them.
A lot of organizations have grown from a few dozen people to hundreds in a very short period of time. As a result, we’re seeing highly talented engineers, project managers, and construction professionals being promoted into leadership roles without necessarily having the management training, succession planning experience, or organizational infrastructure to support that growth.
A year from now, I think many companies will wish they had invested earlier in talent development, workforce planning, mentorship programs, and building out middle management.
The challenge is no longer just attracting talent. It’s creating an organization that can retain, develop, and scale that talent effectively. The firms that do this well will be much better positioned to handle continued growth, while those that don’t may find themselves dealing with high turnover, leadership gaps, and growing pains despite having successfully hired great people.
We’ve seen a number of companies discuss adding corporate development and strategic planning talent but ultimately postpone those decisions in favor of more immediate project-delivery needs. A year from now, I think some of those firms will realize they’ve built the engine but haven’t invested enough in the people responsible for charting where it goes next.
—Interview conducted by Sonal C. Patel, senior editor at POWER magazine (@sonalcpatel, @POWERmagazine).
