Frontier Diligence Lead

Who we are

About Stripe

Stripe is a financial infrastructure platform for businesses. Millions of companies - from the world’s largest enterprises to the most ambitious startups - use Stripe to accept payments, grow their revenue, and accelerate new business opportunities. Our mission is to increase the GDP of the internet, and we have a staggering amount of work ahead. That means you have an unprecedented opportunity to put the global economy within everyone’s reach while doing the most important work of your career.

About the team

Frontier is an advance market commitment to buy $1B+ of permanent carbon removal by 2030. Frontier aims to send a strong demand signal to researchers, entrepreneurs, and investors that there is a growing market for their technologies. Frontier was founded by Stripe, Alphabet, Shopify, Meta and McKinsey, and operates as a subsidiary of Stripe.

To avoid the worst effects of climate change, most climate models agree the world will need ~6 billion tons of carbon removal a year by 2050. If successful, we’ll increase the likelihood that the world has the portfolio of carbon removal solutions needed to reach these climate goals. Read more about our approach here.

What you’ll do

As a Diligence Lead for Frontier, you’ll be responsible for helping us figure how to deploy our funds to be maximally catalytic for the field. Your job is to find and make recommendations on which carbon removal companies to buy from, including seeking out and soliciting input from cross-disciplinary (and often niche) expertise, ranging from science and engineering, to operations and finance. This role requires someone with an understanding of a broad set of disciplines, fearlessness and humility to dive into new topics, and exceptional judgment to drive towards the ‘right’ recommendations.

Responsibilities

• Source and evaluate high-potential carbon removal suppliers across a wide range of stages, approaches, and geographies
• Negotiate large carbon removal offtake deals, average deal size being ~$30-40M
• Manage end-to-end diligence process on 1-4 suppliers at any given time
• Work with a network of technical experts to vet technology performance and potential 
• Write compelling purchase recommendations for Frontier buyers that synthesize application materials
• Support Frontier portfolio companies post-agreement in quarterly check-ins, investor calls, letters of support, etc. 
• Help shape Frontier’s overall purchase strategy and by-pathway theses

Who you are

We’re looking for someone who meets the minimum requirements to be considered for the role. If you meet these requirements, you are encouraged to apply. The preferred qualifications are a bonus, not a requirement.

Minimum requirements

• BA or BS degree
• You have 7-10 years of relevant experience in commercialization, project development, or late-stage deep tech investing
• You have excellent oral and written communication skills - and in particular, you are adept at translating technical jargon into layman’s terms and summarizing complex concepts in a succinct manner
• You have excellent quantitative skills, including experience with techno-economic analysis and intuition for pressure testing the cost drivers for a business

Preferred qualifications

• PhD in a climate-relevant scientific or engineering discipline
• First-hand experience building/scaling real-world technology and businesses
• Experience allocating large budgets towards frontier technologies (such as VC or government grant programs like ARPA-E)
• Have a deep understanding of the landscape of carbon removal technologies and the techno-economics of large scale carbon capture and storage systems
• You’re an exceptionally fast learner. You enjoy (and have experience) quickly ramping on new technical topics
• You’re uniquely good at getting to the crux of an issue, and can quickly sort the signal from the noise
• You are low ego, and have a proven track record for working well across teams and with external partners

You must be based in the United States. San Francisco and Seattle are preferred. We cannot support relocation for this role.