ZipRecruiter

Log In

1

Critical Infrastructure Jobs in Seattle, WA (NOW HIRING)

next page

Showing results 1-20

All JobsCritical Infrastructure JobsCritical Infrastructure Jobs in Seattle, WA

Critical Infrastructure information

See Seattle, WA salary details

$32

$67

$99

How much do critical infrastructure jobs pay per hour?

As of Aug 8, 2026, the average hourly pay for critical infrastructure in Seattle, WA is $67.35, according to ZipRecruiter salary data. Most workers in this role earn between $54.71 and $78.51 per hour, depending on experience, location, and employer.

What are the key skills and qualifications needed to thrive in critical infrastructure management?

To excel in critical infrastructure management, a solid background in engineering, risk assessment, and regulatory compliance is generally required, often supported by relevant degrees or certifications. Familiarity with SCADA systems, cybersecurity protocols, and industry-specific safety standards is essential. Strong problem-solving abilities, communication, and leadership are vital soft skills for effective coordination and crisis response. These competencies are crucial to ensure the security, reliability, and resilience of essential services that society depends on.

What is the difference between Critical Infrastructure vs Utility Worker?

AspectCritical InfrastructureUtility Worker
Required credentialsVaries; often includes security clearances, technical certificationsTypically requires technical or vocational certifications, safety training
Work environmentIndustrial sites, government facilities, infrastructure networksPower plants, water treatment facilities, electrical grids
Employer and industry usageGovernment agencies, private infrastructure companiesUtility companies, public service providers

Critical Infrastructure encompasses a broad range of essential systems vital to national security and public safety, including transportation, energy, and communication networks. Utility Workers focus specifically on maintaining and operating utility services like electricity, water, and gas. While both roles are crucial for societal functioning and often overlap in work environments, Critical Infrastructure roles tend to have broader scope and security requirements compared to Utility Workers, who primarily handle operational tasks within utility services.

What are some common challenges faced by professionals working in critical infrastructure roles?

Professionals in critical infrastructure roles often encounter challenges such as maintaining system reliability under tight security protocols, responding to evolving cyber threats, and coordinating with multiple stakeholders across public and private sectors. They must frequently adapt to new regulatory requirements and rapidly changing technologies while ensuring uninterrupted service delivery. Effective communication and collaboration with emergency response teams, IT specialists, and government agencies are essential for addressing incidents and implementing preventive measures.

What is critical infrastructure?

Critical infrastructure refers to the essential systems, assets, and networks that are vital to a country's security, economy, public health, and safety. These include sectors like energy, water, transportation, communications, and financial services. Disruption or damage to critical infrastructure can have severe consequences for society and the functioning of government and businesses. Protecting and securing these systems is a top priority for national security and resilience.
What are popular job titles related to Critical Infrastructure jobs in Seattle, WA? For Critical Infrastructure jobs in Seattle, WA, the most frequently searched job titles are:
What job categories do people searching Critical Infrastructure jobs in Seattle, WA look for? The top searched job categories for Critical Infrastructure jobs in Seattle, WA are:
Critical Infrastructure jobs near you
Infographic showing various Critical Infrastructure job openings in Seattle, WA as of August 2026, with employment types broken down into 1% As Needed, 83% Full Time, 11% Part Time, and 5% Contract. Highlights an 93% Physical, 2% Hybrid, and 5% Remote job distribution, with an average salary of $140,095 per year, or $67.4 per hour.

Data Center Infrastructure Electrical Engineer

OpenAI

Seattle, WA • On-site, Remote

$257K - $327K/yr

Full-time

Re-posted 20 days ago

Job description

About the Team
OpenAI is building the infrastructure foundation for the next generation of AI. The Data Center Engineering team defines the strategy, reference architectures, technical requirements, and delivery standards for the large-scale data centers that support OpenAI research, products, and infrastructure partners.
As a Data Center Infrastructure Electrical Engineer, you will help define, validate, and scale the electrical power systems that support high-density AI compute. You will translate evolving compute requirements into practical facility and rack-power architectures, evaluate new technologies and vendor solutions, and drive technical decisions across design, manufacturing validation, construction, commissioning, deployment, and operations.
This role is best suited for a senior hands-on engineer with deep experience in mission-critical power systems, strong judgment under ambiguity, and the ability to connect facility infrastructure, hardware requirements, controls, telemetry, reliability, and operations.
About the Role
We are seeking a senior electrical infrastructure engineer to lead the development of reliable, scalable, and efficient power architectures for high-density, liquid-cooled AI data centers.
The ideal candidate has strong practical experience with critical electrical systems at data centers or comparable industrial scale, including medium-voltage and low-voltage distribution, utility interfaces, backup power, UPS and battery systems, rack power delivery, grounding, protection, controls, and monitoring systems.
You should be comfortable moving between long-range architecture, detailed engineering review, lab validation, vendor qualification, field deployment, and operational troubleshooting.
Key Responsibilities
  • Design and optimize electrical topologies and equipment strategies that reduce cost, accelerate schedules, improve efficiency, increase scalability, and maintain high reliability and maintainability.
  • Review and develop basis-of-design documents, single-line diagrams, equipment specifications, commissioning plans, and power system studies including load flow, short circuit, protection coordination, arc flash, and grid transient compliance.
  • Lead technical evaluation of equipment vendors, manufacturers, design consultants, commissioning agents, contractors, and test labs. Review submittals, schematics, certifications, quality records, and test reports.
  • Evaluate AC and DC power distribution options for high-density compute, including rectifier architectures, busway, rack power shelves, power supplies, cable management, redundancy strategies, serviceability, and fault isolation.
  • Partner with mechanical, cooling, controls, hardware, networking, construction, and operations teams to ensure electrical systems support liquid-cooled GPU rack deployments and reliable facility operation.
  • Drive FAT, SAT, witness testing, burn-in, reliability testing, interoperability testing, and integrated systems testing for critical infrastructure and rack deployments.
  • Help guide and operate an R&D program to validate new equipment, rack designs, telemetry, operating envelopes, failure scenarios, and facility-to-hardware interactions.
  • Define telemetry and controls requirements including metering, waveform capture, breaker and relay status, UPS and battery health, generator status, rack power, CDU status, coolant conditions, alarms, and control states.
  • Analyze lab data, operational incidents, power quality events, nuisance trips, thermal excursions, controls alarms, and rack-level failures to improve designs, procedures, vendor quality, and reliability models.
  • Create engineering standards, test procedures, commissioning scripts, operating procedures, decision records, risk registers, and concise executive summaries.
  • Provide senior technical escalation support during design reviews, construction, manufacturing validation, commissioning, energization, deployment, and operational events.
  • Raise the technical bar across partner teams in electrical design, safety, testing discipline, documentation quality, reliability, and operational rigors

Qualifications
  • 10+ years of electrical engineering experience in mission-critical facilities such as data centers or comparable critical infrastructure.
  • Bachelor's degree in electrical engineering, power systems, or a related discipline.
  • Strong hands-on experience with MV/LV distribution, transformers, switchgear, switchboards, generators, UPS systems, batteries, PDUs, RPPs, busway, PSUs, grounding, bonding, and protection systems.
  • Experience producing and reviewing electrical designs, studies, equipment specifications, commissioning plans, test procedures, and acceptance criteria.
  • Experience leading FWTs, FATs, SATs, integrated systems testing, failure-mode testing, and root-cause investigations.
  • Strong understanding of codes, standards, utility coordination, safety requirements, and AHJ processes.
  • Ability to evaluate conflicting technical tradeoffs involving reliability, cost, schedule, constructability, maintainability, and scalability.
  • Strong written and verbal communication skills with the ability to explain complex issues clearly to technical and non-technical stakeholders.
  • Comfortable operating in fast-moving environments with incomplete information and changing priorities.

Preferred Skills
  • 15+ years of relevant experience.
  • Advanced degree in electrical engineering, power systems, or a related discipline.
  • Professional Engineer license, Chartered Engineer status, or comparable professional certification.
  • Direct experience with hyperscale data centers, GPU clusters, high-density rack deployments, or liquid-cooled compute environments.
  • Experience qualifying new electrical products from prototype through certification, manufacturing ramp, deployment, and lifecycle support.
  • Experience with BMS, EPMS, DCIM, SCADA, PLCs, protective relays, waveform capture, data historians, or reliability analytics platforms.
  • Experience with modular power systems, rack-level conversion, BESS, HVDC/LVDC, or other advanced power architectures.
  • Experience managing global, multi-site deployment programs or manufacturing quality programs.
  • Familiarity with grid constraints, demand response, renewable integration, or low-carbon infrastructure strategies.

Work Environment and Travel
  • This role requires periodic travel to data center campuses, manufacturing partners, equipment suppliers, laboratories, construction sites, and commissioning activities.
  • The person in this role should be comfortable working in office, lab, manufacturing, construction, and operating data center environments, including environments that require PPE, safety briefings, lockout/tagout discipline, and coordination with site operations.
  • Work may include time-sensitive technical escalations during commissioning, energization, production deployment, vendor testing, or operational incidents.

About OpenAI
OpenAI is an AI research and deployment company dedicated to ensuring that general-purpose artificial intelligence benefits all of humanity. We push the boundaries of the capabilities of AI systems and seek to safely deploy them to the world through our products. AI is an extremely powerful tool that must be created with safety and human needs at its core, and to achieve our mission, we must encompass and value the many different perspectives, voices, and experiences that form the full spectrum of humanity.
We are an equal opportunity employer, and we do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, age, veteran status, disability, genetic information, or other applicable legally protected characteristic.
For additional information, please see OpenAI's Affirmative Action and Equal Employment Opportunity Policy Statement.
Background checks for applicants will be administered in accordance with applicable law, and qualified applicants with arrest or conviction records will be considered for employment consistent with those laws, including the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance for Employers, and the California Fair Chance Act, for US-based candidates. For unincorporated Los Angeles County workers: we reasonably believe that criminal history may have a direct, adverse and negative relationship with the following job duties, potentially resulting in the withdrawal of a conditional offer of employment: protect computer hardware entrusted to you from theft, loss or damage; return all computer hardware in your possession (including the data contained therein) upon termination of employment or end of assignment; and maintain the confidentiality of proprietary, confidential, and non-public information. In addition, job duties require access to secure and protected information technology systems and related data security obligations.
To notify OpenAI that you believe this job posting is non-compliant, please submit a report through this form. No response will be provided to inquiries unrelated to job posting compliance.
We are committed to providing reasonable accommodations to applicants with disabilities, and requests can be made via this link.
OpenAI Global Applicant Privacy Policy
At OpenAI, we believe artificial intelligence has the potential to help people solve immense global challenges, and we want the upside of AI to be widely shared. Join us in shaping the future of technology.

Apply