Recruiting Solar Development Talent

What's the job description for a solar developer?  Unfortunately, it depends on: whom you ask, whether it's residential, commercial-scale or utility-scale, or what the rest of the development organization looks like.

But there are some guidelines that you can use, and that's what this page is about.  What kind of experienced people are out there and which type will fit your organization best? Here are some thoughts and information to consider for utility-scale or commercial-scale solar.  These comments are not targeted  on residential solar.

One place to start is to create a list of duties you want this developer to handle.  

For example,  junior developers are being used early in the process to find sites, work out the permitting, do the legwork associated with assembling the parcel, even some of the early work to evaluate interconnections.

One duty that is important to consider is: will this person be responsible for finding offtakers and developing power purchase agreements.  Those tasks are open-ended, and are either handled by senior developers or a separate business development team.  Below you will find a discussion of developer duties and samples from Indeed.com of what various companies are listing for solar developer jobs.

Click Here For A List of Developer Duties(pdf file)

Click Here For Sample Ads From Job Sites(pdf file)