Site Selection Lead
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 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.