Job Purpose
The Senior Development Manager is responsible for serving as a senior technical anchor across the full renewable energy development portfolio, providing expert oversight, quality control, and technical guidance across all markets and projects while directly managing select development projects. The role partners closely with the Director of Development to strengthen the development function by building team capability, establishing standards, and improving execution across the portfolio. It also provides portfolio-wide problem-solving, risk management, and technical leadership to ensure consistent project quality and successful delivery, while leading cross-functional collaboration with engineering, finance, construction, and other stakeholders to advance projects through development, pre-construction, NTP, construction, and COD.
Duties and Key Responsibilities
Portfolio-Wide Technical Oversight:
- Review active development projects across all US markets, proactively surfacing technical risks, feasibility gaps, and issues that may have been missed.
- Serve as the senior technical escalation point for the development team - diagnosing problems and working collaboratively to solve them.
- Partner closely with the Director of Development to provide a technical lens on portfolio health, project status, and team performance.
Development Execution & Quality:
- Manage projects assigned to you with diligence, ensuring that development proceeds on-schedule and on-budget.
- Work alongside the team to drive projects through the full development lifecycle - from site feasibility through development complete, pre-construction, NTP and COD.
- Oversee and contribute to feasibility analysis, including site assessments, interconnection strategy, permitting pathways, and preliminary engineering.
- Manage and coordinate external vendors, engineering consultants, and permitting specialists to deliver quality outcomes on schedule, while ensuring that we are managing costs by completing as much work in-house as possible.
- Apply critical path scheduling and lean project management practices to keep complex, multi-faceted projects on track.
Team Elevation & Standards:
- Act as a mentor and technical resource for developers - reviewing their work, filling knowledge gaps, and accelerating their professional growth.
- Build and improve internal development standards, templates, workflows, and tools that strengthen the team's baseline capabilities across all projects.
- Identify recurring patterns in where projects stall or struggle and lead initiatives to address them systematically.
Cross-Functional Collaboration:
- Work closely with pre-construction, engineering, finance, and origination teams to ensure smooth project handoffs and alignment on technical and commercial requirements.
- Represent the development team in internal and external stakeholder conversations, utilities, AHJs, and landowner/customer discussions as needed.
Experience & Qualifications
- 5+ years of experience in renewable energy development, with direct experience managing solar PV and/or BESS projects from origination through development complete.
- Demonstrated ability to identify and resolve technical and process challenges across a portfolio of projects simultaneously.
- Strong command of development fundamentals: site feasibility, interconnection, permitting, site control, title, engineering, project scheduling, and budget management.
- Experience working with and managing external engineering consultants, vendors, and permitting professionals.
- Advanced proficiency in critical path scheduling and project costing/budgeting.
- Working knowledge of solar PV and BESS system design principles for projects up to 20MW+ AC.
- Intermediate proficiency with industry tools such as Helioscope, Smartsheet, and MS Office Suite (or equivalent).
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills; comfortable presenting to both technical and non-technical audiences.
- A mentorship orientation - genuine interest in developing less experienced teammates.
Why You'll Love Working With Us
- Competitive and thoughtfully structured compensation package, including a strong base salary that reflects your experience and the impact you bring to the role.
- Fully paid Medical, Dental, and Vision coverage, your health and peace of mind come first.
- 401(k) with employer match, helping you grow your financial future.
- Generous PTO including 19 days of Vacation/Sick time so you can unplug, recharge, and take care of what matters most.
- Join a smart, collaborative, mission-driven team that's actively accelerating the transition to a clean-energy future and making a real impact on the health of our planet.
Compensation will be based on experience, education, and other relevant factors.
