Head of Project Development (North America)

Company: Zenobē

Location: Chicago Area, USA (fully remote, with travel required)

Employment type: Full-time

Zenobē is recruiting a Head of Project Development for North America, a hands-on technical leader who will build and lead a team of technical sales engineers, managers and associates responsible for the technical and value-engineered solution on its fleet electrification projects. The role carries a mandate to build the North American technical function largely from scratch, and it is evaluated on deal outcomes and on the successful handover of construction-ready projects to Project Delivery, as much as on technical output. It works across Project Delivery, Product Management and Engineering, Operations, Commercial Analytics, Legal and Business Development, and calls for an electrical engineering foundation combined with development experience in permitting, utility interconnection and EPC tendering. Zenobē designs, finances, builds and operates battery systems, and since 2017 has raised over £2.7 billion in debt and equity, with more than 1.2GW of grid-connected batteries live or under contract and around 3,400 electric vehicles supported, including transit buses, school buses and trucks. Benefits include a 401(k) with up to 4% matching, health, dental, vision and life insurance, a training budget, enhanced maternity and paternity benefits and 20 days holiday that rises after five years.

Key Responsibilities

  • Build, lead and work alongside a team of technical sales engineers, managers and associates delivering technical solutions for fleet electrification projects
  • Own the technical project development function supporting Zenobē’s commercial group in North America, coordinating across Project Delivery, Product Management and Engineering, Operations, Commercial Analytics, Legal and Business Development
  • Conduct site surveys, develop initial project designs covering HV/LV equipment, EV charging equipment and communications, and produce layouts in AutoCAD
  • Navigate permitting and AHJ requirements across jurisdictions to keep projects on schedule
  • Run feasibility reviews at volume to flag technical risk, cost and feasibility early for Business Development and Commercial Development
  • Assess project design during bidding to identify value engineering opportunities that reduce cost, mitigate risk or shorten schedule
  • Support EPC tendering and manage supplier-partner relationships across Tier 1 to 3 subcontractors
  • Own the technical value proposition, driving Zenobē’s turnkey offering with customers and playing an active role in closing deals
  • Manage how contractual risk flows down from customer contracts into EPC and subcontractor terms, keeping scope, price and risk allocation aligned through execution
  • Liaise with utility companies on grid constraints, funding sources and capacity increase requests, and with OEMs on products coming to market
  • Develop and maintain costing models, Scopes of Work, RFQs and SOPs to scale project development capability
  • Own Stage Gate (Assurance Review) compliance for the Development and Design phase, AR3a and AR3b, so that design, permitting, subcontracts and budget are complete and audit-ready
  • Hand construction-ready projects over to Project Delivery, and improve development processes, tooling and best practice as the pipeline scales

Requirements

Essential:

  • Bachelor’s degree or higher
  • Project development background in EV, energy or broader infrastructure (P3, renewables, utility-scale) with an electrical bias
  • Proven experience building and leading technical and engineering teams, including technical sales engineers, managers and associates
  • Working knowledge and interpretation of electrical schematics, drawings, SLDs and general arrangements
  • Experience with land-use planning and property entitlements to support early-stage site feasibility
  • Detailed experience with permitting, AHJs and construction management processes
  • Understanding of electrical contracting, the construction process and cost estimation and scoping
  • Experience with the utility interconnection process, including service and line extension, load letters and capacity requests
  • Experience with EPC tendering and managing Tier 1 to 3 supplier-partners
  • Project management acumen to run a multi-project portfolio and a growing team concurrently under deadline pressure
  • Commercial acumen on how design, scope and value engineering affect deal economics, pricing and win probability
  • Legal and contracting experience, able to review, negotiate or structure terms and understand risk flow-down into EPC and subcontractor agreements
  • Flexibility in work location, with travel required

Desirable:

  • EV and fleet electrification experience, including charge management, EVSE providers, OEMs and grant programmes
  • Bachelor’s degree or higher in engineering or an adjacent discipline, electrical strongly preferred
  • P3 or infrastructure development or finance background
  • Project Management Professional (PMP)
  • Experience with energy management, load modelling and optimisation
  • Familiarity with Salesforce, SiteTracker, P6/Primavera, Bluebeam, AutoCAD and MS Project
  • Experience with EV charging infrastructure commissioning