Site Selection & Enablement Leader

About the Team:

OpenAI, in close collaboration with our capital partners, is embarking on a journey to build the world’s most advanced AI infrastructure ecosystem. The Stargate team is central to this mission, setting the core infra strategy and implementing this vision. From site selection to the buildout process, this team sits at the intersection of commercial, technical, strategy, and operations, interacting with teams and executives inside and outside of OpenAI.

About the Role:

OpenAI is seeking someone who is excited by massive global challenges spanning thousands of stakeholders; someone motivated by driving critical decisions that shape the infrastructure, compute, and suppliers landscapes both for OpenAI and the entire industry. Specifically, the Infrastructure Strategy & Delivery team supporting Stargate is seeking an experienced and ambitious and driven leader to spearhead our Site Selection & Enablement team.

This role will focus on upstream site readiness, touching on the commercial, regulatory, and technical requirements necessary to build the world’s most advanced supercomputer. With a scope covering a cross-section of land, power, engineering and community engagements, this role is ideal for experienced professionals in the data center site readiness domain who are looking to step into the driver’s seat.

From setting and driving critical evaluation metrics, to interacting with state- and municipal- stakeholders, to driving executive decisions at Stargate and OpenAI, this role is critical for both the near- and long-term success of OpenAI’s infrastructure destiny.

In this role you will:

• Engage with community stakeholders and service providers to advance OpenAI’s data center initiatives, ensure adherence to contractual obligations, and support the growth of existing sites through the renewal of current agreements or establishment of new ones.

• Identify and de-risk critical site readiness features including commercial terms, permitting and regulatory requirements, and workforce readiness

• Negotiate land, power, and other utilities commercial terms; ability to negotiate with multiple types of stakeholders including private and institutional parties

• Collaborate with local and governmental agencies, consulting firms, and contractors to ensure engagement, compliance, and project success

• Work closely with internal teams (commercial, engineering, operations, legal, tax, and finance) to align selection strategies with overall project objectives

• Build a robust site readiness pipeline to enable OpenAI and Stargate’s infrastructure ambitions

• Regularly communicate site readiness updates, risks, and milestones to executive stakeholders

• Establish and track key performance indicators to assess the effectiveness of the site selection program and the contributions of external vendors and partners.

You might thrive in this role if:

• 10+ years of experience in site selection for data centers

• Proven track record of managing relationships across a variety of stakeholders, from individual land owners, to utilities, to government and regulatory agencies

• A strong understanding of data center and infrastructure strategy

• A strong understanding of data center civil, structural, environmental requirements and permitting

• An ability to learn and speak-to data center technical innovation including updates to power- and cooling- systems

• Experience working with diverse external partners, including government agencies, consulting firms, and engineering design firms.

• Familiarity with industry best practices and standards for data center site selection including commercial benchmarks, selection criteria, contracting options (Own/BTS/COLO) and process management

• An ability to work as a multi-faceted member in a dynamic young team. This includes an ability to collaborate and work directly with land- and power- specialists

• An exciting to jump all-in and build Stargate with us

About OpenAI

OpenAI is an AI research and deployment company dedicated to ensuring that general-purpose artificial intelligence benefits all of humanity. We push the boundaries of the capabilities of AI systems and seek to safely deploy them to the world through our products. AI is an extremely powerful tool that must be created with safety and human needs at its core, and to achieve our mission, we must encompass and value the many different perspectives, voices, and experiences that form the full spectrum of humanity. 

We are an equal opportunity employer, and we do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, age, veteran status, disability, genetic information, or other applicable legally protected characteristic.

For additional information, please see OpenAI’s Affirmative Action and Equal Employment Opportunity Policy Statement.

Qualified applicants with arrest or conviction records will be considered for employment in accordance with applicable law, including the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance for Employers, and the California Fair Chance Act. For unincorporated Los Angeles County workers: we reasonably believe that criminal history may have a direct, adverse and negative relationship with the following job duties, potentially resulting in the withdrawal of a conditional offer of employment: protect computer hardware entrusted to you from theft, loss or damage; return all computer hardware in your possession (including the data contained therein) upon termination of employment or end of assignment; and maintain the confidentiality of proprietary, confidential, and non-public information. In addition, job duties require access to secure and protected information technology systems and related data security obligations.

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