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
The Utility & Power Project Lead ensures OpenAI’s data centers have reliable and scalable access to power and water. You will manage utility interconnection processes, negotiate agreements, and validate feasibility of candidate sites. Crucially, this role will serve as a project management and construction/enablement lead to ensure major power readiness projects progress on-time and in coordination with the broader infrastructure needs of OpenAI. This role is fundamentally focussed on project delivery.
Responsibilities
Lead transmission/distribution interconnection strategy and queue management.
Project and construction management and oversight for major power projects.
Partner with utilities for behind the meter and in front of the meter projects.
Partner in technical negotiation for ESAs, PPAs, VPPA, RECs, and water rights agreements.
Collaborate with local water and sewer authorities to support site deployment.
Manage relationships with utilities, ISOs, municipalities, and regulators.
Partner with sustainability and engineering teams on renewable integration and resiliency.
Track wholesale power and water market trends to inform site strategy.
Collaboration and coordination with our engineering organization.
Coordination with schedule and procurement with supply chain partners.
Qualifications
10+ years in power/utility procurement for hyperscale, industrial, or grid-intensive projects.
Expertise in MV/HV transmission, interconnection studies, and utility contracting.
Familiarity with water rights, treatment, reuse, and municipal contracting.
Strong negotiation and relationship management skills.
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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