Spartanburg County is about to have a data center hiring problem. Valara Holdings, a subsidiary of NorthMark Strategies, is building a $2.8–$3 billion campus on South Pine Street, more than 900,000 square feet across four buildings paired with a 450–460 MW private natural-gas power plant, with construction running through 2028. The talent that project needs is not sitting idle in Upstate South Carolina.

South Carolina levies state income tax on wages, with a top marginal rate of 6.2% as of 2026, so take-home comparisons to no-income-tax states require an honest adjustment in offer conversations.

For commissioning engineers, look for direct experience on hyperscale or colocation projects, familiarity with NETA testing standards, and a history of working through integrated systems testing without missing energization deadlines. For critical-facilities engineers, a Certified Data Center Professional (CDCP) or Uptime Institute accreditation is a differentiator, but real shift responsibility at a Tier III or Tier IV facility outweighs any credential on paper. For this project specifically, power-plant-grade certifications matter more than they do on a typical campus. Operators with high-pressure gas system experience, turbine or generator operations backgrounds, or utility-adjacent credentials such as a Black Seal or equivalent state boiler license will be in genuine demand here. That experience base does not follow from standard data center hiring pipelines.

For commissioning roles, per diem plus housing allowance is standard when pulling national candidates to Spartanburg. A 12- to 18-month contract-to-hire structure is common and gives both sides flexibility as the commissioning wave peaks and then rolls off. For permanent operations hires, sign-on bonuses in the $10,000 to $20,000 range have become expected in competitive markets and Spartanburg will need to compete with Charlotte, Atlanta, and the Research Triangle for the same candidate pool. Relocation assistance matters more here than in a major metro. The Greenville–Spartanburg area offers a genuinely lower cost of living than Atlanta or Northern Virginia, and that story sells if recruiters lead with it. For power-plant operators specifically, where the talent is concentrated in regional utility employers, non-compete review and notice-period planning need to be built into the timeline before an offer is made.

Construction trades come primarily from the Greenville–Spartanburg corridor and non-union contractor networks already active in Upstate South Carolina, supplemented by traveling crews on large industrial projects along I-85. Commissioning engineers are a national search anchored in markets with dense hyperscale activity: Northern Virginia, Phoenix, Dallas, and Columbus. Critical-facilities engineers and technicians are sourced from existing colocation and enterprise campuses in Charlotte, Atlanta, and the broader Carolinas, and increasingly from the growing Greenville market as prior industrial projects have produced facilities maintenance talent. Power-plant-grade operators are the exception: that pool is concentrated in utility and independent power producer operations across the Southeast and requires targeted outreach well outside any standard data center sourcing channel.

Spartanburg County has real industrial labor strength. BMW's manufacturing campus in nearby Greer, plus a dense corridor of automotive and advanced manufacturing suppliers, has built a regional workforce with serious mechanical, electrical, and industrial maintenance skills that translate well to data center construction and to facilities technician roles. Non-union construction contractors can draw from that base and from the broader Greenville–Spartanburg metro without extreme difficulty.

The problem is that Spartanburg has essentially no history of private hyperscale data center operations, and no local base of workers who have operated a large private gas-fired generation facility rather than a public utility plant. The experience that exists in the region sits inside regulated utility operations at places like Duke Energy facilities, where operators are employed, certified to utility standards, and not actively looking. Recruiting them requires patience, competitive total compensation, and in some cases navigating employer non-solicitation norms. Contractors or operators who treat this project's power staffing like a standard data center ops search will be behind schedule before commissioning begins.

Construction runs through 2028 across four buildings, which means commissioning waves will likely roll building by building rather than all at once. That is an opportunity: staffing firms that get their candidate pipelines built now, before each commissioning window opens, will be in a position to deliver rather than scramble. Operations hiring for the first buildings could begin 12 to 18 months before the final construction punch list closes. Power-plant operator recruiting should start earlier than that given the sourcing difficulty.

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. For this project, that includes knowing the difference between a standard critical-facilities background and the power-plant operations experience Spartanburg actually requires. If Valara's South Pine Street campus is on your board, send us the roles and we start now.

For the buildout, see Valara's Spartanburg County project.

Comp sources: ZipRecruiter and dcgeeks 2026 salary data.