Manager, Land Development

Fervo Energy; Salt Lake City (UT); On-site; USD 140,000 - 230,000; Full time

Job summary

Fervo Energy is seeking a Manager — Land Portfolio to lead land portfolio maturation and integrate it into long-range planning. The role oversees the full development lifecycle from site evaluation to permitting and operations, collaborating with senior management and cross-functional teams.

Ideal candidates have deep land acquisition, subsurface, and energy production expertise, plus strong analytical and communication skills. Based in Salt Lake City with 3 days in the office.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree and 7+ years in land management or related field.
• Experience evaluating acquisitions, divestitures, and joint ventures.
• Strong financial modeling and capital allocation skills.
• Proven track record presenting executive-level recommendations, with stakeholder-management skills.
• Willing to travel up to 25% of the time.

Responsibilities

• Leads land portfolio development to meet annual and long-range plan goals.
• Leads portfolio land budget optimization and allocation recommendations.
• Partners with Land Title, Contracts, and Land Acquisitions on deployment strategies.
• Communicates market intelligence, benchmarks positions, and strategic recommendations.
• Prepares executive presentations and drives cross-functional land initiatives using GIS and analytics.

Skills

Land management

Strategy development

Stakeholder management

Financial acumen

Executive communication

Education

Bachelor's degree

MBA, MS, JD preferred

Tools

GIS

AI-enabled tools

Job description

Description

Fervo Energy is building the most cost-effective, repeatable geothermal power plants in the world — requiring a durable land and resource portfolio, disciplined long-range planning, and the ability to secure the resources, rights, and agreements needed for growth. As Fervo scales from first-of-a-kind projects to fleet-wide deployment, we're seeking a Manager — Land Portfolio to lead the company's land portfolio maturation strategy and its integration into the great Fervo Team’s long-range planning. This role reports to the Sr. Director of Land, Environmental and Permitting, working extensively with Sr. Management and individual contributors across the wide ranging Fervo Team.

The role partners with internal and external stakeholders to develop and execute the company's land resource portfolio development strategy and is focused on the full development lifecycle—from initial site evaluation, acquisition, and access through permitting, drilling, construction, interconnection and into long-term operations. The ideal candidate combines deep land acquisition, subsurface development, and energy production expertise with strong analytical and communication to prepare and develop our geothermal energy production land portfolio.

Requirements

Responsibilities

Land Portfolio Development

• Leads land portfolio development preparation and strategy to meet the annual and long-range plan goals. Set priorities and evaluate priority infill and access acquisition. Analyzes and manages securing of path to interconnection, construction water, and ancillary agreements for land use

Land Portfolio Strategy & Capital Allocation

• Leads portfolio land budget optimization and allocation recommendations through identification of near, mid, and long term portfolio preparation feasibility and estimated timelines. Recognize tradeoffs between capital allocation across early and advanced development portfolio; develops integrated spend outlooks and presents strategic recommendations.

Land Portfolio Development Budget Management

• Partners with Land Title and Contracts, and Land Acquisitions to prioritize capital deployment when considering all other Land budget strains, such as rentals, bonus payments, and land use fees to develop acquisition strategies across BLM, SITLA, and fee lands.

Land Intelligence & Competitive Position

• Partners with Land Business Managers to identify and communicate the company's land market intelligence capability, monitoring competitor activity and policy developments, establish and maintain strategic relationships, benchmarking land position and costs against competitors, and translating insights into strategic recommendations, identifies growth positions in domestic geothermal, leads new-market assessments, and supports negotiation of leases, surface agreements, and joint ventures.

Cross-Functional Leadership

• Prepares executive and investor presentations, leads cross-functional land initiatives across Land Administration, Acquisitions, Business Development, Title and Contracts as well as Legal, Commercial Development, Engineering, Drilling, Operations, Commercial, Finance, and Policy, and drives continuous improvement using GIS, analytics, and AI-enabled tools.

Qualifications

Required

• Bachelor's degree, plus 7+ years of progressive experience in land management, strategy, corporate planning, or business development.
• Demonstrated experience executing asset acquisition, development, or deployment strategies that support enterprise and long-range planning.
• Proven track record presenting executive-level recommendations, with extensive experience evaluating acquisitions, divestitures, and joint ventures.
• Strong financial acumen — acreage valuation, economic modeling, capital allocation — and the ability to synthesize complex information into clear recommendations.
• Exceptional communication, negotiation, and stakeholder-management skills, with experience leading cross-functional teams in highly-matrixed organizations.
• Ability to make high-quality decisions in ambiguous, fast-moving environments; willing to travel up to 25% of the time.

Preferred

• Advanced degree in Energy Development, Land Development, Business, Economics, or a related discipline (MBA, MS, JD, or equivalent).
• Direct experience in oil and gas, geothermal, power generation, upstream energy, renewables, or capital-intensive infrastructure.
• Prior experience in subsurface energy and renewable energy land development, permitting and entitlements.
• Demonstrated success building market intelligence or analytics capabilities, leveraging modelling and/or automated tools or processes to improve strategic decision-making.
• 10+ years of experience at a senior management level with a publicly traded energy company; demonstrated success in developing growth strategies based on market intelligence for a portfolio of projects; experience presenting progress updates and strategic plans to executive leadership.

Location

Fervo Energy has corporate offices in Houston, TX, Golden, CO, Reno, NV , Oakland, CA and Salt Lake City, UT. This position is preferred to be based out of our Salt Lake City, UT office, with an in-office presence of 3 days per week.