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Oct 05 2018

Meet The Woman Behind Data Center Design at Facebook

By Meta Careers
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Karen W. is an Architect for Data Center Design in Asia Pacific. Over the past five years, she has been involved with designing many data centers in the U.S. and Europe for Facebook. We asked Karen to share her career journey and some proud accomplishments along the way - including designing a six-foot shark! She also shares meaningful advice for other leaders looking to make an impact.

Finding My Passion

In early 2000 I pivoted my architectural career away from designing traditional office and residential buildings toward designing data centers. Before taking the leap, I had never even seen a data center, nor did I fully understand the magnitude of design challenges and complexity to power and cool the servers that live within the space. The first time I walked through one, I got chills. They’re so much more than just a beautiful building - they hold the daily data for billions of computers and cell phones, so they require a much more complex operating infrastructure.
="Servers inside a Facebook data center"
Servers inside a Facebook Data Center.
Since joining Facebook five years ago, I’ve been involved in designing data centers built by the company. I’m currently working on my favorite project yet, an 11-story data center in Singapore. This project is my favorite because I thrive when given the opportunity to problem-solve and I’ve never designed a data center of such a large scale. With Singapore having such a limited amount of land to use, and the city’s ever-changing weather conditions, our team has experienced many unique design challenges.
Another exciting aspect of working on data center designs is the chance to work with people who share the same vision of making the world a better place. As more and more of these data centers come online, we want the design to be so efficient that they’re as environmentally sustainable as possible. We want to use the least amount of the world's resources and power, which is an enormous challenge when working within a confined space like Singapore. Overcoming this challenge, without sacrificing design quality, has proven to be a huge highlight of my career.
="A rendering of Facebook's first data center in Singapore"
The Singapore Data Center is Facebook's first data center in Asia, and is currently under construction.
Another proud achievement is solving for our massive increase in demands for data centers, the design team now operates much in the same way as a production line. We’ve standardized the building design process so that everyone has a clearly defined role and executes production very quickly. My role requires me to travel to various building sites and Facebook offices. What strikes me most is the company culture is always the same. It's productive, it's vibrant, people are always rushing around doing awesome work, and you can feel the collaboration in the air.

Discovering My Voice

The day I first interviewed at Facebook, I saw a poster that asked, “What would you do if you weren’t afraid?” That was quite transformative for me in shifting my mindset, and giving me the power to really open up. Realizing that my managers truly had my best interests at heart and wanted me to be successful, which requires sharing how you process information and voicing your opinion, was another turning point. Now I focus on communicating my ideas and making my opinion heard. It’s so important to have an environment where everyone feels comfortable enough to be bold, ask questions, and have open discussions. I firmly believe it’s the shared vision, cultural diversity and a supportive leadership team that has shaped exactly that kind of environment at Facebook.
I’ve tried to carry that forward with the people I manage, too. I always encourage people I’ve managed, to be their authentic selves and find their own voice. It’s not about success or failure, or the right answer or wrong answer. People want to know how you think and how you can contribute so that the team as a whole is making an impact. Now if I see someone sitting at the edge of the table instead of actively participating in the conversation even though I know that person has input, I’ll pull them aside and encourage them to speak up. You’d be surprised how a simple, “Hey, I think you have input. Come to the table and share your thoughts and views,” can completely open someone up and change their career trajectory. It’s important to me that we all encourage and support each other to be the best that we can be.

Lessons from Leading

I joined Facebook as a manager to oversee the data center design team, which was made up of architects, mechanical, electrical, building controls, and telecom engineers. Helping grow this team and expand the number of global projects we worked on has been incredibly rewarding. One of the biggest lessons I learned in this role was to be generous with my time. You have to spend the time to mentor your team members, but also allow them autonomy and the chance to lead. At times, this meant taking a backseat and giving someone the freedom to take on a leadership role - but giving guidance and support whenever they need it so that they can be successful! Empowering a new team member to take the reins is vital to that person’s growth as well as to the success of the broader team.
="Karen W., an Architect for Facebook Data Center Design"
More traditional companies typically have a hierarchical model where, in order to move up in the company, you have to be a manager. Something I admire about Facebook is that it wants its employees to make the strongest impact based on their skillset. We offer two career tracks: one for managers and one for individual contributors, and they’re interchangeable. I’m now wearing a different hat in an individual contributor role. I appreciate that Facebook offers the freedom to explore how and where you can make the most impact.

Staying Inspired

Another unique aspect of Facebook is that we encourage side initiatives that foster company culture and team growth. Something I’m known for at Facebook exemplifies just that: building the Infra Shark sculpture. This side project was inspired by a tough moment for the infrastructure team several years ago when they needed all hands on deck. Jay Parikh, VP of Infrastructure, used the symbol of a shark to motivate his team to be laser-focused on the problem at hand. Delfinia Eberly, VP of Site Operations, asked me to design a shark that uses recycled servers and data center parts as a constant visual reminder of Jay’s message to move fast and focus on impact.
I learned a lot from that project. There are many aspects of working on a shark sculpture that are applicable to building a very complex data center. As one would expect, hanging a 400-pound shark sculpture in the second floor of an atrium was no easy feat - there were significant logistics and structural detailing that went into the project. That's the fun part of Facebook. We may build massive buildings and have mission critical jobs, but we can pursue projects we’re personally interested in (and that bring smiles to the faces of visitors!).
="A large shark sculpture suspended in the air inside a Facebook office"
The Facebook Infra Shark.

Building the Future

When you think about careers at Facebook, people immediately think about the software engineers. But I don’t think many people know that we need architects. We also need mechanical, electrical engineers, and people from construction background to help build our data centers. We want to bring on diverse people who will have different viewpoints and who can come together to solve a problem with innovative solutions. My advice for people interested in joining Facebook is this: ask yourself what kind of impact you could have if you weren’t afraid? Be open, be humble, and don’t be afraid to share your ideas and thoughts.

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