Supervisor, Fire Protection - Memphis

SpaceX was founded under the belief that a future where humanity is out exploring the stars is fundamentally more exciting than one where we are not. Today, SpaceX is actively developing the technologies to make this possible, with the ultimate goal of making life multiplanetary and expanding consciousness to the stars.

SpaceXSI is building Super Intelligence to help humanity understand the universe. Our teams are building the full Super Intelligence stack: from our Colossus supercomputers, to Grok models, to our suite of applications, including Grok Bot, Grok Build, Grok Imagine, Grok Voice, and X. We're creating a powerful flywheel where more compute trains better models, better models power more useful products, and what we learn from people using those products shapes what we build next.

SUPERVISOR, FIRE PROTECTION

Memphis is a large, continuously operating super-intelligence data center campus. Facilities Operations keeps the buildings, power, cooling, and life-safety systems running so the compute stays online. Fire protection is part of that uptime, not a side task.

The Fire Protection Supervisor leads the technicians and contractors who keep fire alarm, detection, and suppression systems in service across the Memphis data center campus. The role owns inspection, testing, maintenance, impairments, and commissioning turnover, and it works with engineering on in-house design, code compliance, and authority-having-jurisdiction issues. This is a hands-on leadership job on a 24/7 site. The position is based in Memphis, Tennessee and Southaven, Mississippi.

RESPONSIBILITIES:

• Supervise daily work of fire protection technicians and assigned contractors at Memphis, including scheduling, on-call coverage, shift handoff, training, and accountability.

• Manage operation, maintenance, troubleshooting, and repair of fire alarm and water- or gas-based suppression systems serving data halls, electrical rooms, battery and energy-storage areas, and support buildings, and drive the preventive-maintenance backlog to closure in the CMMS.

• Plan and execute inspection, testing, and maintenance of fire and life-safety systems (alarms, water-based sprinkler and suppression, pre-action, gas-based and clean-agent systems, extinguishers) and close deficiencies before they become failed inspections or an outage risk.

• Own impairments, fire watches, and restoration of protection, with documented control of risk and clear communication to data center operations so protection is not dropped during live compute.

• Lead commissioning of fire and life-safety projects from planning through functional and acceptance testing, authority-having-jurisdiction witness, and turnover (as-builts, programming, training, and spare parts), including new halls and fit-outs still coming online.

• Provide oversight of fire protection contractors and related construction, including submittal review, field quality, impairments, and punch list. Build internal capability so routine Memphis work does not stay with vendors.

• Coordinate with Facilities trades (electrical, mechanical, and controls), operations, Environmental Health and Safety, contractors, and the local authority having jurisdiction on installations, upgrades, certifications, and code interpretations.

• Maintain drawings, device lists, calculations, inspection records, permits, and corrective-action logs in an audit-ready state.

• Verify assigned buildings and modifications remain compliant with adopted building and fire codes and that installed systems operate as designed around high electrical load, hot aisles, and dense cable and equipment layouts.

• Support fire hazard and risk review of materials, lithium-ion and other battery systems, high-density electrical equipment, storage, and layout changes that affect protection or egress.

• Participate in design of fire alarm, detection, and suppression for new construction, renovations, and occupancy changes, including layouts, calculations, specifications, and packages for internal review and authority-having-jurisdiction submittal.

BASIC QUALIFICATIONS:

• High school diploma or equivalency certificate.

• 5+ years in fire protection system design, installation, inspection, testing, maintenance, or commissioning, including at least 2 years leading technicians or a contractor crew in a data center, industrial, or other mission-critical facility.

• Current NICET certification in Fire Alarm Systems, Water-Based Systems (layout and/or inspection and testing), or Special Hazards Systems (gas-based or clean agent).

PREFERRED SKILLS AND EXPERIENCE:

• Working knowledge of building and fire codes and NFPA standards, including NFPA 13, 25, 72, 75, 76, 70, and 2001, and familiarity with Tennessee and Memphis adoption and local amendments.

• Data-center fire protection experience: pre-action or clean-agent protection of data halls (NFPA 75 and NFPA 2001), very early smoke detection, and impairment control in a live hall.

• Battery and energy-storage experience under NFPA 855, including how that strategy differs from a data-hall suppression system.

• Familiarity with insurer criteria used on hyperscale sites (FM Global data sheets for data centers and energy storage) and with turning those into inspection and commissioning tests the authority having jurisdiction will sign.

• NICET certification in more than one discipline (alarm, water-based, and/or special hazards).

• Ability to program and troubleshoot fire alarm systems, including early-warning detection used in data halls.

• Ability to perform or review sprinkler hydraulic calculations and fire alarm or special-hazard design criteria.

• Experience with wet, dry, and pre-action sprinkler and gas-based or clean-agent systems.

• Construction administration in a live facility (outages, impairments, tie-ins) and turnover of newly commissioned halls or buildings.

• Experience with a CMMS: preventive-maintenance compliance, backlog triage, and work-order quality.

• Demonstrated reduction in contractor reliance by training an internal crew.

• Knowledge of OSHA requirements for the work (hot work, lockout on pumps and electrical equipment, confined space, elevated work).

• Degree in fire protection or a related field, or progress toward a Professional Engineer license.

ADDITIONAL REQUIREMENTS:

• Must be available for extended hours, weekends, and after-hours response for alarms, impairments, and system failures on the Memphis site.

• Some travel to other sites for projects, training, or coverage.

• Able to work in active data halls, electrical spaces, and construction areas and to perform field inspections (ladders, riser rooms, roofs, and ceiling spaces).

• Must be able to obtain and maintain any site access and background requirements for Memphis.

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