Construction Estimator, AMER Estimating and Cost Control

Job description

Amazon Web Services (AWS) is the world’s most comprehensive and broadly adopted cloud platform. Our Data Center Planning and Delivery (DCPD) organization builds and scales the infrastructure that powers AWS. We are seeking a Construction Estimator specializing in electrical scope to join the newly formed AMER Estimating and Cost Control (ECC) organization as a discipline subject matter expert.

This is a technical individual contributor role. You will provide bottoms-up and top down electrical estimating capability for AWS data center construction across AMER and even globally in collaboration with EMEA and APJC Regional Estimating functions. Your focus spans the full electrical scope of a data center — medium- and low-voltage distribution, switchgear, generators and paralleling, UPS and battery systems, transformers, busway, feeders, grounding, lighting, fire alarm, and the electrical content of mechanical and controls packages.

You will collaborate globally with estimating teams across all AWS regions on BOD cost inputs that inform design standards. When Design Engineering introduces a electrical design change or innovation, you are the first call — delivering rapid, discipline-specific cost impact assessments that enable informed decisions. This role is foundational to ECC’s mission of creating a structured feedback loop between estimate and actual, so estimates improve every cycle.

Key job responsibilities

- Produce detailed, bottoms-up electrical construction cost estimates — MV/LV distribution, switchgear, generators/paralleling, UPS and battery, transformers, busway, feeders, grounding, lighting, and fire alarm

- Collaborate globally with regional estimating teams on Basis of Design (BOD) electrical cost inputs that inform design standards across all AWS regions

- Deliver rapid cost impact assessments for electrical PDCM intercepts, first-of-kind designs, and innovation proposals from Design Engineering

- Support new regions planning with electrical estimates for market entry — pre-GBT cost intelligence where local pricing data is thin

- Perform detailed electrical quantity takeoff and pricing from one-lines, panel schedules, specifications, and design documents at all design stages

- Develop and maintain the electrical cost database — unit rates, $/MW parametric models, and equipment pricing reflecting current market conditions and AWS standards

- Serve as the electrical estimating SME for Estimating Managers, reviewing and validating 3P vendor electrical estimates

- Analyze electrical subcontractor pricing, bid tabulations, and awarded contracts to identify trends, anomalies, and cost optimization opportunities

- Benchmark electrical estimates against portfolio actuals through the estimate-to-actual feedback loop with Cost Control

- Contribute to estimating tools and templates, incorporating lessons learned from completed projects into improved electrical estimating methodologies

A day in the life

Your morning begins with a quantity takeoff on a Design intercept from Design Engineering — a proposed switchgear lineup change that could shorten lead time but adds installed cost. You model the delta against the current BOD electrical estimate and prepare a cost impact memo for DE’s design review.

Midday, you join a global call with electrical estimating counterparts in EMEA and APJC to align on BOD electrical cost inputs — medium-voltage distribution unit rates, generator $/MW, and UPS pricing — for the next design standard revision. Your AMER actuals are the benchmark. Afterward, an Estimating Manager asks you to gut-check a 3P vendor’s electrical estimate; you spot a conduit and feeder routing assumption that doesn’t match the latest one-line and flag it.

You close the day updating your electrical cost database with final account data — a switchgear package landed 6% above estimate in a competitive-bid market. You document the driver and adjust unit rates for the next round of estimates.

About the team

AMER Estimating and Cost Control (ECC) is a newly formed organization within DCPD that unifies Estimating and Cost Control under a single leader. ECC provides end-to-end cost lifecycle ownership — from initial estimate through final account.

You will be one of several Discipline Estimators (Electrical, Mechanical, CSA) working alongside the Estimating Managers who cover cluster groups across AMER, all reporting to the Manager, Construction Estimating (Chief Estimator Equivalent). Estimating provides the inputs — methodology, rates, benchmarks, discipline takeoffs, and 3P vendor products — that support Preconstruction’s owned estimates and CAR deliverables.

Your electrical expertise directly supports both project-level estimating and global design standard development.