Director, Capital Project Delivery

About the Company

We are a renewable energy and ocean technology company committed to rapidly developing and deploying technologies that will ensure a sustainable future for Earth by unlocking the vast energy potential of its oceans. Our focus is on capturing civilizational levels of ultra-low-cost renewable energy for applications including computing and affordable renewable fuels delivered to shore.

The company is a public benefit corporation headquartered in Portland, Oregon, and backed by leading venture capitalists, philanthropic investors, university endowments, and private investment offices. We operate as an idea meritocracy in which the best ideas change the company’s direction on a regular basis.

Our staff have worked at organizations such as SpaceX, Blue Origin, Boeing, Tesla, Apple, Virgin Orbit, Astra, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, New Relic, Bridgewater, Raytheon, Disney Imagineering, and the US Army and Air Force, as well as research universities, startups, and small companies across a range of industries.

About the Job

Our core technology is the node, a device that produces energy in the ocean’s harshest conditions for years at a time without human maintenance or intervention.

As Panthalassa's physical footprint and technical operations expand, we are hiring our first Director, Capital Project Delivery to establish and lead our owner-side capital delivery function. The Director will deliver new facilities, major renovations, power and utility upgrades, industrial infrastructure, and specialized R&D, test, prototyping, integration, and manufacturing environments through definition, design, permitting, construction, commissioning, and turnover.

Initially, the Director will personally lead major projects and perform many of the planning, project-control, owner's-representation, and cross-functional coordination activities required for successful delivery. As the portfolio grows, they will define how the function should scale and build the internal team and delivery model through a combination of internal capabilities, external partners, and practical execution standards.
The right person can move comfortably between strategy and the field - shaping the delivery approach, challenging incomplete designs, managing cost and schedule, holding partners accountable, and resolving issues in active operating environments. They bring sound judgment, field credibility, and the ability to scale both projects and people without creating unnecessary bureaucracy.

Candidates should have strong interpersonal skills and be able to thrive in a creative, scrappy, and collaborative environment in which the best ideas change the company’s direction on a regular basis.

Responsibilities

Capital Portfolio and Team Leadership

- Lead and prioritize a portfolio of concurrent facility, infrastructure, and technical-environment projects.

- Set each project's delivery strategy, scope, budget, schedule, risk profile, staffing approach, and acceptance criteria.

- Build and lead the capital projects team, beginning with Project Engineer and Project Coordinator capability and adding project-management or construction-management resources as the portfolio grows.

- Clarify accountability across internal project leads, owner's representatives, consultants, contractors, and external partners.

- Establish practical delivery standards and maintain clear portfolio-level reporting on priorities, staffing, progress, cost, schedule, risk, decisions, and dependencies.

Power and Utility Infrastructure

- Lead construction execution, field coordination, energization, commissioning, turnover, and closeout for electrical service expansions and utility infrastructure projects.

- Coordinate with utilities, landlords, authorities having jurisdiction, engineers, contractors, suppliers, and internal technical owners to resolve construction issues and manage cost, schedule, risk, and operational impacts.

- Direct the construction and integration of substations, transformers, switchgear, distribution, standby power, metering, controls, cooling, process utilities, and related site infrastructure.

- Manage long-lead equipment, utility commitments, permitting dependencies, shutdowns, temporary-power requirements, and energization milestones to protect business and project schedules.

Project Delivery

- Confirm that approved scope, design documents, permits, budget, schedule, contracts, risks, and operational acceptance criteria are ready for construction handoff.

- Serve as the accountable owner-side lead from construction mobilization through commissioning, turnover, and closeout, with regular presence at active project sites.

- Lead contractors, consultants, vendors, and commissioning providers during construction, initially providing hands-on coordination and increasingly working through assigned internal and external resources as the team grows.

- Manage field progress, safety, quality, sequencing, logistics, RFIs, submittals, changes, pay applications, schedules, punch lists, and material decisions.

- Ensure construction aligns with approved design documents, requirements, budget, schedule, and operational needs.

- Resolve field conditions and coordinate design clarifications with the appropriate technical owners, escalating significant technical, financial, legal, schedule, or scope decisions with clear options and recommendations.

- Plan work in active facilities to protect people, equipment, testing, manufacturing, and continuity of operations.

- Confirm commissioning and turnover requirements at project handoff, then lead inspections, startup, functional testing, training, documentation, final acceptance, financial closeout, and operational transition.

Cost, Schedule, Risk, and Change Control

- Manage project budgets, schedules, forecasts, contingencies, risk registers, cash flow, commitments, and estimated cost at completion against approved baselines.

- Evaluate changes for cost, schedule, operational impact, and alignment with approved requirements; identify variance early and recommend action before options narrow.

- Partner with Finance and Procurement on contracting, forecasting, accruals, invoicing, capital reporting, and commercial closeout.

Required Qualifications

- Approximately 12 or more years of progressive experience delivering complex capital projects, industrial construction, advanced manufacturing facilities, technical laboratories, infrastructure, or similarly demanding built environments.

- Demonstrated experience as an accountable owner-side project lead through definition, design, permitting, construction, commissioning, turnover, and closeout.

- A strong record delivering multiple concurrent projects with meaningful capital exposure, complex stakeholder requirements, and hard operational deadlines.

- Experience building or scaling a project-delivery capability, including hiring or leading Project Engineers, Project Coordinators, Project Managers, owner's representatives, or external construction-management resources.

- Experience delivering electrical service or utility upgrades

- Strong field-execution, construction-administration, and project-controls experience, including budgets, schedules, forecasts, contracts, changes, pay applications, and closeout.

- Ability to read and challenge drawings, specifications, estimates, schedules, proposals, contracts, and change requests across major building and infrastructure disciplines.

- Experience delivering new construction or renovations within active manufacturing, engineering, laboratory, office, or other operating environments.

- Strong judgment, direct communication, and the ability to translate complex project conditions into clear decisions, trade-offs, and recommendations while holding partners

Desired Qualifications

- Advanced manufacturing, aerospace, maritime, robotics, energy, semiconductor, data infrastructure, defense, automotive, heavy industrial, or another high-consequence technical environment.

- Greenfield construction, major brownfield conversion, or large-scale manufacturing-facility buildouts.

- Large electrical-service, substation, utility interconnection, cooling, process-infrastructure, heavy-equipment, or specialized testing projects.

- Fast-track delivery in which design, permitting, procurement, utility coordination, and construction overlap.

- Site due diligence, technical lease review, facility-condition assessment, or geographically distributed project delivery.

- A bachelor's degree in engineering, architecture, construction management, or a related field is preferred; equivalent practical experience will be considered. Professional credentials are useful, but practical judgment, ownership, field credibility, people leadership, and demonstrated project delivery matter more.

The above qualifications are desired, not required. We encourage you to apply if you are a strong candidate with only some of the desired skills and experience listed.

Additional Requirements

- Regular on-site presence at Panthalassa's Portland, Oregon, and Vancouver, Washington, operations, with travel to other project and operating locations as needed.

- Ability to periodically support critical installations, shutdowns, utility cutovers, and commissioning outside standard business hours.

- Ability to work safely in active industrial, fabrication, construction, marine, and field environments.

- Travel to vendors and test sites as needed

- Intermittently able to work longer hours and weekends to support critical needs. While we expect a lot of each other, we also offer a high degree of autonomy and work-life balance, including flexiblePTO and flexible working hours.

Compensation and Benefits

If hired for this full-time role, you will receive:

- Cash compensation of $185,000 - $255,000

- Equity in the company. We’re all owners and if we’re successful, this equity should be far and away the most valuable component of your compensation.

- A benefits package that helps you take care of yourself and your family, including:

Flexible paid time off

- Health insurance (the company pays 100% of gold-level PPO plan for full-time employees, their partners, and dependents)

- Dental insurance (the company pays 100% for full-time employees, their partners, and dependents)

- Vision insurance (the company pays 100% for full-time employees, their partners, and dependents)

- Disability insurance (the company pays 100% for a policy to provide long-term financial support if you become disabled)

- Ability to contribute to tax-advantaged accounts, including 401(k), health FSA, and dependent care FSA

- Relocation assistance to facilitate your move to Portland (if needed).

Location

This is an on-site position. Our offices, lab, and shop are located in Portland, Oregon.