Director of Project Development

Graphyte; Little Rock, Northern (AR, KY); Hybrid; USD 150,000 - 230,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity

Remote work

Benefits

Job summary

Graphyte is a climate‑tech company hiring a Director of Project Development to own site origination, land deals, and community engagement in rural counties. You will work with engineering, finance, and operations to move opportunities from mapping through permitting to construction readiness.

You will report to the Chief Commercial Officer in a senior, individual contributor role with ownership from day one across multiple regions.

Qualifications

• 7–10 years of experience in physical infrastructure or industrial project development.
• Experience taking projects from greenfield to permitting to construction readiness or FID.
• Land acquisition experience with direct negotiations with landowners.
• Proven community engagement in rural areas and handling local concerns.
• Ownership of permitting strategy across local, state and federal levels.
• Financial fluency to defend site economics with a finance team.
• Ability to operate at an early-stage pace and build playbooks.

Responsibilities

• Identify and evaluate new project opportunities and secure land.
• Negotiate land purchases, leases, options, and easements.
• Engage communities and stakeholders to earn local trust.
• Lead permitting strategy and execution across jurisdictions.
• Structure biomass supply, logistics, and agreements to enable financeable projects.

Job description

About Graphyte

Graphyte is a climate tech company on a mission to deliver the world's lowest-cost, highest-durability carbon removal. We compress and bury agricultural and timber biomass, locking away carbon that would otherwise return to the atmosphere, and sell the resulting carbon credits to buyers who need permanent, verifiable removal. We are a small team operating our first site and building the pipeline to scale to many more. The science is proven. We are storing biomass and selling credits. The challenge now is execution.

The Role

Graphyte's projects don't start in a conference room. They start in a county, with biomass supply to map, landowners to earn the trust of, permits to secure, and a community that deserves straight answers about what we're building and why it's good for them.

As Director of Project Development, you own that work. You'll identify and evaluate new project opportunities, secure land, build community and stakeholder support, drive permitting strategy, and structure the local agreements (land, biomass feedstock supply, logistics) that turn a promising region into a construction-ready, financeable project. You'll work alongside a fellow Director of Project Development, dividing a growing portfolio between you, and coordinating daily with our engineering, finance, and operations teams to keep every project moving on its critical path.

This is a senior individual contributor role reporting to our Chief Commercial Officer. You'll carry real ownership from day one: named sites with financing timelines attached, and new regions where you are the first Graphyte person anyone has met.

What You'll Own

• Site origination & screening.

  Find and evaluate new project regions against techno-economic criteria you'll help build: biomass supply, land, logistics, permitting complexity, community fit, and cost-per-ton impact.

• Land acquisition.

  Negotiate purchases, leases, options, and easements directly with landowners across active and prospective regions.

• Community & stakeholder engagement.

  Be Graphyte's face in the counties where we build. Earn and keep the local trust that our multi-site strategy depends on.

• Permitting.

  Own permitting strategy and execution across local, state, and federal jurisdictions for a first-of-its-kind storage category, managing environmental consultants and counsel.

• Commercial development.

  Structure the biomass supply, hauling, and community benefit agreements that make each project real and financeable.

What We're Looking For

• 7-10 years developing physical infrastructure or industrial projects (renewables, waste, agriculture-industrial, or similar land-intensive categories), including taking projects from

• greenfield through permitting to construction readiness or FID

• Land acquisition experience: you have personally negotiated agreements with private

• landowners, not just managed a land agent

• Community engagement experience in rural communities, including public processes and

• handling real local concerns

• Permitting ownership: you'

• ve built and executed permitting strategy, ideally where the

• regulatory pathway was novel or ambiguous

• Financially fluent in project development: you can defend site economics with a finance team

• and produce development materials that survive diligence

• Comfortable with early-stage pace and ambiguity: you build the playbook, not inherit it

Strong plus:

• Experience with timber and agricultural regions in the southeast and western North America

• Carbon markets, CDR, or biomass supply chain familiarity

• Experience developing projects in a novel or emerging asset category

What This Is Not

This is not a desk-bound strategy role. You will spend real time in small towns, at kitchen tables, in county buildings, and on project sites, and the relationships you build there will determine whether Graphyte scales. If you're energized by owning hard, tangible problems end to end and you're ready to jump in the deep end and build something real, local, and climate beneficial, this might be your dream job.

Compensation & Logistics

• Salary range is market rate with meaningful early-stage equity.

• Standard benefits.

• Full-time, remote.

• Start date: ASAP.

We are an equal opportunity employer and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability status, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by applicable law.