Development Lead

Job description

About the Team OpenAI is building the world’s most advanced AI infrastructure ecosystem. The Site Readiness & Development team owns the upstream diligence and development work required to convert powered-land opportunities into executable infrastructure options. About the Role The Development Lead owns the development path after a site clears initial screening. This role validates the viable power pathway, turns site constraints into a building-level deployment plan that makes clear when each building can deploy, and runs the phase-by-phase action list that closes the decisions, dependencies, and evidence gaps needed to make a site controllable and executable. Key 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 prep…