Director, Powered Land Development

About the company

The company was founded in 2017 by JB Straubel, co-founder and former CTO of Tesla, on a simple but radical idea: the critical minerals powering the energy transition already exist. They just need to come back. Today the company is the largest lithium-ion battery recycler in North America — recovering, refining, and redeploying critical minerals from end-of-life batteries back into the supply chain. On the energy side, the company has deployed the largest second-life battery project in the world, delivering power to AI data centers in months rather than years using proprietary energy architecture engineered entirely in-house. The company is profitable, the market it operates in is projected to grow 20 to 50 times over the next decade, and the company is the only company with the supply chain, the technology, and the operational scale to lead it.

Position Summary

The Director, Powered Land Development is responsible for building the company' powered land development function from the ground up: sourcing, evaluating, and advancing sites for the company Energy's solar and storage deployments. This role will focus on site selection, permitting and entitlements, local stakeholder and community engagement, and in some cases, interconnection and utility queue management. The role independently screens and diligences a wide range of prospective sites across target markets, negotiates site control with landowners and land agents, and builds the financial models, tracking tools, and repeatable processes needed to convert land opportunities into bankable, executable projects. Success depends on sound judgment operating with substantial ambiguity, comfort representing the company with landowners, counsel, and local officials, and the ability to build and lead the powered land development function while partnering closely with Engineering, Finance, and Legal.

Responsibilities

• Source, screen, and evaluate prospective sites for the company Energy's solar and storage deployments across target markets, including land use, zoning, and site-level fatal-flaw analysis

• Lead entitlement and permitting strategy, engaging local, county, and state officials, community stakeholders, and land agents to advance project feasibility

• Support government affairs and community relations efforts tied to prospective sites

• Negotiate and secure site control (leases, easements, options, and related agreements) with landowners and land agents

• Represent the company with landowners, brokers, customers, and state and local officials throughout the site-selection process, including leading and negotiating agreements for local economic development, tax, and community agreements

• Develop and own financial and valuation models to evaluate site economics, development costs, and project returns

• Build and maintain tracking tools for land inventory, pipeline status, budgets, and schedules across active development sites

• Manage site-identification tasks against budgets and schedules, including coordinating internal and external technical support such as environmental consultants, engineers, and outside legal counsel

• Maintain disciplined pipeline tracking and reporting to keep leadership informed of site status, risk, and timeline

Skills, Knowledge, and Abilities

• Bachelor's degree in real estate development, engineering, business, planning, or a related field

• 10+ years of experience in energy project development, real estate development, or land acquisition, ideally including utility-scale solar, storage, or data center site development

• Demonstrated experience navigating local and county-level permitting, zoning, and entitlement processes

• Track record independently sourcing and negotiating site control agreements with landowners and land agents

• Working knowledge of financial and valuation modeling to evaluate project economics

• Experience engaging and building relationships with local government officials and community stakeholders

• Ability to independently build processes and tools for a function with limited existing infrastructure

• Ability to travel extensively to support site visits, diligence, and stakeholder engagement across target markets

The position is full-time. Compensation will be commensurate with experience.

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