Site Readiness & Development Lead

OpenAI; United States; Remote; USD 140,000 - 210,000; Full time

Job summary

OpenAI is seeking a Development Lead to own the post-screening development path for large-scale site projects. You will translate constraints into a clear building-level deployment plan, sequence work, and drive decisions with executive-level alignment.

Responsibilities include validating power options with utilities, managing phase delivery, and coordinating cross-functional teams to ensure timely transitions into design, construction, and operations.

Qualifications

• 6+ years in land development, infrastructure development, data center development, energy-project development, electrical, mechanical, civil or environmental engineering, or related project delivery.

Responsibilities

• Own the stage-gate path from exclusivity and commercial terms through desktop diligence, confirmatory diligence, site closing, and handoff into design, construction, and operations.
• Validate power pathways with Power and utility partners, including service options, interconnection and delivery sequencing, readiness assumptions, schedule exposure, cost implications, and decision points.
• Turn each development phase into a disciplined action list with owners, deadlines, closure criteria, open evidence, and escalation paths; drive the list to closure rather than simply reporting status.
• Translate power, land, civil, environmental, access, entitlement, and permitting constraints into a building-level deployment plan with clear sequencing and target deployment timing for each building.
• Coordinate site access, exclusivity, LOI, commercial terms, financing assumptions, and closing requirements with Commercial, Legal, Finance, Power, Land, and other partner teams.
• Define the desktop diligence scope, expected 15-30 day deliverables, and go / no-go criteria; then govern the 90-120 day confirmatory diligence plan.
• Set and track ECDs for easements, offsite improvements, well and pipeline locating, environmental studies, water-well testing, geotechnical reports, additional land, incentives, and other site-specific workstreams.
• Scope and manage diligence vendors and consultants, keeping their outputs tied to decisions, schedule, cost, action-list closure, and residual risk.
• Maintain the integrated development schedule, budget implications, dependency tracker, risk register, mitigation plan, and executive escalation cadence.
• Deliver executive-ready advance, defer, or stop recommendations and prepare the readiness package for transition into design, construction, and operations.

Skills

Land development

Infrastructure development

Data center development

Energy-project development

Electrical engineering

Mechanical engineering

Civil engineering

Environmental engineering

Job description

OpenAI is seeking a Development Lead to own the post-screening development path for large-scale site projects. You will translate constraints into a clear building-level deployment plan, sequence work, and drive decisions with executive-level alignment.

Responsibilities include validating power options with utilities, managing phase delivery, and coordinating cross-functional teams to ensure timely transitions into design, construction, and operations.