Development Diligence & Site Planning Lead

About the Team

OpenAI, in close collaboration with our capital partners, is building the world's most advanced AI infrastructure ecosystem. The Stargate team sets the strategy and executes across site selection, design, and delivery of self-build data centers. We operate at the intersection of commercial, technical, and government interests, working closely with executives inside and outside OpenAI.

About the Role

The Development Diligence & Site Planning Lead will be responsible for driving the front-end evaluation, planning, and risk mitigation of potential data center sites. This role blends civil engineering expertise with development strategy, ensuring each site can be delivered at hyperscale with speed, predictability, and cost efficiency. You will serve as the technical anchor for due diligence, coordinating with environmental, utilities, zoning, and economic development teams to deliver a full risk profile and go/no-go recommendation for investment.

Responsibilities

• Lead technical site due diligence, including geotechnical, hydrology, grading, drainage, and traffic/access studies.

• Develop site planning layouts that integrate power, fiber, water, and offsite infrastructure.

• Identify and mitigate risks related to topography, soils, wetlands, floodplains, and other site constraints.

• Work with external consultants to produce site plans, massing studies, and civil design packages.

• Partner with Zoning & Entitlements Lead to align site layouts with jurisdictional requirements.

• Provide civil cost inputs to financial models and validate constructability assumptions.

• Create scalable diligence and planning playbooks to accelerate the evaluation of new markets.

• Partner with design teams to ensure success and scalability with future development related to chips and AI

Qualifications

• 8+ years in civil engineering, land development, or site planning, preferably with large-scale industrial projects.

• Strong knowledge of grading, drainage, hydrology, and transportation access.

• Experience managing third-party consultants and coordinating across technical disciplines.

• Ability to interpret geotechnical and environmental reports into actionable site plans.

• Strong communicator comfortable interfacing with external developers, agencies, and executives.

• PE license preferred but not required.

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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Compensation Range: $285K - $355K