Compensation Overview

New Leaf Energy is seeking a Project Developer or Senior Project Developer to join our Utility Scale Project Development team to take the lead in developing and growing our pipeline of projects.

This position may be filled out of our Lowell, MA, Boston, MA, Troy, NY, or Chicago, IL offices, or remotely for the right candidate. We value in-person collaboration and offer a hybrid work environment.  Hybrid employees work in the office at least two out of every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, and are free to work from the office or from home on other days.  Remote candidates need to meet an "In-Market" designation - for this position, candidates located within the TVA or MISO-South transmission areas would be considered.

About the Role:

The Utility-Scale Project Developer’s priorities are to originate and develop buildable, profitable utility-scale solar and energy storage projects. This role will be focused on Southeast markets, including (but not limited to) MISO-South and the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA).  Your core responsibility will be to manage development activities on multiple sites, including negotiating agreements with landowners, driving the permitting and interconnection processes, and otherwise progressing projects through New Leaf Energy’s development process until they are ready to finance and build. You will nurture relationships with local stakeholders, including landowners, local governments, utilities, policy-makers, and others. With the support of the Policy and Business Development Director, you will be the primary expert in the company for your markets, and must either already possess or quickly develop fundamental market knowledge in order to create and execute on a successful project development plan.

Position responsibilities include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Develop utility-scale solar and energy storage projects from prospecting through financial close;
• Drive regional market strategy and prioritization across New Leaf Energy’s Southeast market. For now, this means MISO-South and TVA, but could be expanded into additional territories; 
• Meet or exceed annual volume targets. Those volume targets will be the result of a project development plan on which you and your manager will collaborate, but the general expectation is that you will a develop an annual pipeline of projects that, once mature and ready for sale, will generate at least $5-10MM of direct profit;
• At the project level, you will either coordinate among the team or drive directly:
• Site control,
• Transmission interconnection,
• Permitting,
• Power marketing,
• Engineering and design,
• Any additional activities that are necessary to prepare a project for sale, including support as necessary for our internal engineering and finance teams through the project sale stages;
• Gather market intelligence and expand relationships with governments and off-takers to deeply understand the development environment, continuously refine that understanding, and use it to adjust strategy;
• Oversee formal off-take RFP responses and bilateral engagement with strategic counterparties;
• Work collaboratively with internal and external subject matter experts across the project life cycle;
• Represent New Leaf Energy at marketing events such as trade shows and industry events;
• Maintain accurate information about your projects in New Leaf Energy’s system of record.

Requirements:

The successful candidate will bring most or all of the following experiences, skills, and attributes. If you’re unsure of whether you meet enough of the qualifications below but believe that your experience and skill set is a good match for this position, we invite you to apply!

• Bachelor’s degree required; MBA or other advanced degree preferred;
• Strong knowledge of the solar industry, or a similar project development context;
• 3+ years’ experience in a complex sales or project development environment, preferably in solar;
• Successful track record in a complex project development environment, preferably in solar and/or energy storage MISO-South and/or Tennessee Valley Authority;
• Ability to identify key value and risk drivers across complex market conditions, and to prioritize the most promising opportunities;
• Demonstrated ability to both lead and follow in cross-functional teams, and to be a great teammate;
• Understanding of key quantitative business concepts, including both probabilistic thinking and financial metrics (NPV, IRR, etc.);
• Ability to spend time in-person with customers and travel frequently in assigned territory (20-50% travel).

Compensation

New Leaf Energy compensates all employees in three ways: market-competitive base salary, plus above-market variable compensation, plus an equity-like program such that all employees experience the benefits of ownership.  We use a data-driven and transparent methodology to calibrate compensation that is externally competitive and internally equitable, guided by the New Leaf Energy compensation manual, which is available to all employees.

The base salary for this position is up to $138,000 depending on experience. Total compensation for this position, however, is primarily driven by our generous project incentive plan, which compensates developers through a profit-sharing mechanism on successfully developed projects.  A bi-weekly draw against future incentive payments is also offered to increase your effective base compensation. The program is generous and industry-leading, and we’re glad to go into more detail in the interview process.