Axiom Core announced its 30-acre data center campus at 599 Lofty Road in Delano, Pennsylvania on August 26, 2026, targeting 120 to 150 MW of critical IT load at full build-out, with Phase 1 delivering 40 to 50 MW across up to 600,000 square feet of AI-ready space. The site is already improved and the power territory is PPL Electric Utilities. The talent that campus needs is not sitting idle in Schuylkill County.

For commissioning engineers, look for documented Cx authority experience on critical facilities, familiarity with high-density cooling (liquid cooling and free-air systems are both relevant here given Axiom Core's design), and exposure to PJM interconnection environments. For critical facilities engineers and technicians, OSHA 30, NFPA 70E, and direct experience with UPS systems, generators, and BMS platforms matter more than a specific degree. At the technician level, candidates with industrial maintenance or power-plant backgrounds can close the gap quickly if they have the right fundamentals. For the AI-ready, high-density workloads Axiom Core is targeting at 50 to 100-plus kW per rack, any candidate who has worked in a hyperscale or colocation environment running dense GPU clusters is worth a second look even if their resume reads non-traditional.

For commissioning roles, per diem and travel reimbursement are table stakes. Most experienced Cx engineers are contractors or move between contracts, so a structured contract-to-hire path with a clear conversion window is often more attractive than a permanent offer up front. For critical facilities engineers and senior technicians, the opposite is usually true: permanent roles with benefits, a defined shift structure, and a retention bonus tied to Phase 1 go-live are more competitive than open-ended contract arrangements. Relocation assistance becomes necessary the moment you move outside the Allentown-Bethlehem-Easton metro for operations hires. Schuylkill County has affordable housing relative to most data center markets, which is a genuine selling point for candidates relocating from Northern Virginia or the New York metro. Lead with that in the offer conversation. For trades during construction, local union agreements typically govern; confirm jurisdiction with IBEW Local 1600 and the relevant steamfitter local before writing offers for that tier.

Commissioning engineers come from a national pool. The best candidates are working on other data center builds right now and become available when a project reaches substantial completion. Sourcing them requires active outreach to people mid-project, not passive job board posting. Critical facilities engineers are concentrated in existing colocation and hyperscale markets: Northern Virginia, Phoenix, Chicago, Dallas, and the New Jersey-New York corridor. The Philadelphia suburban market has a growing population of these candidates as Mid-Atlantic data center investment increases. Critical facilities technicians can be sourced regionally if you look in the right places. Candidates with backgrounds in industrial controls, power generation, and HVAC from manufacturing or utility environments in the Lehigh Valley and Schuylkill County can be converted with targeted upskilling. Entry facilities technicians are a local hire. Mining-adjacent mechanical and electrical maintenance experience maps directly to the repetitive, high-stakes inspection work this role requires.

Schuylkill County's anthracite coal and heavy-industrial history produced a workforce that genuinely understands large electrical and mechanical systems. High-voltage switchgear, cooling towers, industrial controls, and union discipline around safety are all present in this labor market. That is real and useful for the construction and early commissioning phases of a campus this size.

The non-obvious insight is this: Delano is not an isolated rural build. It sits inside a forming data center corridor anchored by PPL Electric Utilities and PJM interconnection, and multiple large-scale projects are developing across this footprint simultaneously. Nearby Highridge Business Park is already attracting data center interest, and other sites in eastern Pennsylvania are ramping in the same electrical territory. That means the coal-country trades and the early-generation local data center technicians who would be Axiom Core's best regional operations hires are being approached by competing projects at the same time. The labor advantage Schuylkill County's industrial heritage provides is real, but it has a shorter shelf life than it would have had two years ago. The staffing firms that move first on this campus will have access to candidates who will be committed to competing projects six months from now.

Phase 1 at 40 to 50 MW means commissioning engineers are needed before the building is finished, not after. Operations hiring for that phase should begin no later than six months before the anticipated go-live so that technicians can be trained on the specific systems installed. Waiting until construction is substantially complete to post operations roles is the single most common mistake on campus builds of this type, and it is more damaging here because the regional pool of experienced data center operators is thin and getting thinner as competing projects activate.

NextDCX recruits for your toughest data center roles. Share the work, location, and experience your team needs. We run a fresh search for every role, approach people directly, and speak with every candidate before introducing them. You get people screened for the work, pay, location, and availability, ready to meet your hiring team. We also support recruiting partners. If Delano is on your board, send us the roles and we start now.

For the buildout details, see Axiom Core's Schuylkill County data center announcement. Comp sources: ZipRecruiter and dcgeeks 2026 salary data.