OpenAI

Site Selection Lead

OpenAI • $130K — $160K *
San Francisco, CA 94112In-Person
Real Estate & Construction
5 - 7 years of experience
Today
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Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • 6+ years of experience in site selection or related fields such as infrastructure or energy development.
  • Strong strategic judgment on market analysis and portfolio management.
  • Proven leadership in navigating cross-functional stakeholder dynamics and ambiguous decisions.
  • Commercial and financial fluency connecting site quality and deployment risks.
  • Experience in creating site funnels, mapping workflows, and executive presentations.

Responsibilities

  • Own the site-selection strategy across key geographies.
  • Coordinate with multiple departments to define quality site criteria.
  • Translate criteria into actionable site screening strategies.
  • Orchestrate initial site terms and strategy for deployment.
  • Develop deployment plans identifying key project metrics and risks.
  • Lead conceptual site planning using various detailed parameters.
  • Maintain an integrated view of the pipeline and site health for decision making.

Benefits

  • Collaborative work culture with cross-functional teams.
  • Opportunity to influence major site selection decisions.
  • Exposure to various aspects of site development from planning to execution.
  • Visibility and engagement with executive leadership during project selection.
Full Job Description
About the Role

The Site Selection Lead sets the site-selection strategy for powered-land and greenfield/brownfield opportunities. This role defines, with cross-functional partners, what makes a site attractive, executable, and scalable, then turns that shared rubric into portfolio choices and deployment plans.

Key Responsibilities
  • Own the site-selection strategy across priority geographies, including market maps, pipeline segmentation, source refreshes, live-location tracking, and portfolio prioritization.
  • Convene Power, Land, Development, Engineering, Construction, Environmental, Community, Commercial, Legal, and Finance partners to define the shared rubric for a high-quality site.
  • Translate that rubric into clear screening criteria across power readiness, land control, timing, scale, cost, community risk, environmental constraints, AHJ path, budget, schedule, and counterparty credibility.
  • Orchestrate Commercial, Legal, Finance, Power, and Development teams to shape exclusivity, initial terms, site-control strategy, funding assumptions, and the path to deployment before deeper commitment.
  • Build a deployment plan for top candidates that identifies capacity, sequencing, capital implications, critical-path approvals, risks, owners, and stage-gate decisions.
  • Lead conceptual site planning and test-fit screening using boundaries, map layers, buildings, substations, roads, parking, laydown, stormwater, utility corridors, acreage, and estimated load.
  • Maintain a single decision-support view of pipeline stage, site health, power readiness, finance review, maps, project evidence, outstanding source data, owners, deadlines, and escalations.
  • Present executive-ready advance, defer, or stop recommendations with clear trade-offs, resource asks, and next steps; hand qualified sites to the Development Lead with a complete screening record.

Qualifications
  • 6+ years in site selection, infrastructure development, data center development, energy development, commercial real estate, or a related field.
  • Strong strategic judgment on market intelligence, portfolio construction, site viability, counterparty credibility, and prioritization.
  • Demonstrated ability to lead cross-functional organizations through ambiguous decisions and align technical, commercial, legal, and finance stakeholders.
  • Commercial and financial fluency sufficient to connect site quality, deal terms, capital implications, schedule, and deployment risk.
  • Experience building site funnels, screening frameworks, mapping or test-fit workflows, dashboards, and executive decision materials.

About OpenAI

OpenAI is an artificial intelligence research laboratory consisting of the for-profit corporation OpenAI LP and its parent company, the non-profit OpenAI Inc. The company was founded in 2015 by a group of technology leaders, including Elon Musk, Sam Altman, Greg Brockman, Ilya Sutskever, and John Schulman. OpenAI's mission is to develop and promote friendly AI for the betterment of humanity. The company has developed a number of cutting-edge AI technologies, including GPT-3, a language processing system that can generate human-like text. OpenAI has received funding from a number of high-profile investors, including LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman and venture capitalist Peter Thiel.
Learn more about OpenAI
Size
100 employees
Industry
Information Technology
Founded
2015
* Ladders Estimates

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