VP of Power Origination

Deca • San Francisco, CA

3d

About The Position

Deca Digital is a hyperscale data center developer deploying an initial $2B vehicle from a top-three global asset manager, with five projects in flight and a pipeline of 5+ GW across the United States. Our vision is a 10+ GW portfolio of powered land and the vertical infrastructure on top of it. Our mandate is broad: we develop both grid-connected and behind-the-meter projects, we acquire and recapitalize mid-stage development opportunities alongside our own greenfield work, and we compete by orchestrating power solutions creatively across each project’s unique constraints. We have the capital, ambition, and entrepreneurial DNA to become the premier platform in this sector and we’re building the executive team that will get us there.

The VP of Power Origination is a foundational executive hire focused on the single hardest problem in hyperscale data center development today: securing committed, contracted generation capacity and energy delivery. Power is the binding constraint in our sector. Every project requires a bespoke solution, and the architecture for that solution is rarely off-the-shelf. We sometimes talk about this work as “orchestration” – coordination of multiple solutions and workstreams, different disciplines, and complex multivariate strategies. Depending on the project, securing capacity may require any combination of:

Leading utility applications and shepherding them through the technically and politically complex process of getting studied, approved, and contracted at the utility and ISO/RTO levels.
Developing Deca-owned generation, including behind-the-meter gas, BESS, and/or renewables.
Facilitating third-party generators to build new capacity contractually allocated to a Deca project.
Developing Deca-owned BESS as a demand-response (DR) asset that creates dispatchable headroom for utilities and either creates accredited capacity and/or enables curtailable service; and facilitating third parties to do the same.
Negotiating bilateral PPAs with existing and new generators to source capacity and energy.
Negotiating ESAs, including to sleeve 3rd-party capacity and energy to our projects.
Negotiating facilities-upgrade and interconnection-upgrade agreements with utilities.
Running capacity and energy RFPs — directly and in conjunction with utility partners.
This demands a deal-maker mindset paired with technical fluency, comfort inventing structure where none exists, and the persuasive ability to advance conversations with utility executives, regulators, generators, hyperscaler counterparties, EPCs, and others. The role architects a capacity solution for each project and then drives every path of that solution to a signed, executed result. This is one of the highest-leverage seats at Deca Digital, an opportunity to be at the forefront of the energy industry today, and an opportunity to catalyze a large number of hyperscale projects nationally.

Requirements

• 10+ years across roles that have put you on the commercial and regulatory side of energy — at hyperscalers, co-locators, IPPs, utilities (commercial side), PE-backed infrastructure platforms, and/or renewable developers focused on offtake and interconnection.
• Demonstrated track record of closing bespoke energy and capacity deals — motivated by deal complexity, not just rinse-and-repeat volume.
• Familiarity with utility tariff structures, ESA architectures, PPA terms, large-load interconnection processes, and ISO/RTO regulatory regimes.
• Fluent in the technical language of the grid — transmission planning, interconnection studies, facilities upgrades — without necessarily being the engineer yourself.
• Experience with at least one (and ideally several) of: behind-the-meter gas generation, battery storage, demand-response programs, curtailable-load structures, and bilateral PPA negotiation.
• A persuader. You can walk into a utility executive's office, a state regulator's hearing room, a generator's contract negotiation, and a hyperscaler customer review — and move each forward.
• Comfortable inventing structure. Many of the deals you will run have not been done before in their exact form. You see that as the opportunity, not the obstacle.
• Comfortable operating with ownership and accountability in a small, founder-led, high-growth setting.
• Motivated by the opportunity to define a role and a category at the same time.

Nice To Haves

• Possible backgrounds include — but are not limited to — principal-level energy strategists at AWS, Microsoft, Meta, or Google; commercial-side utility executives who have moved across the table; renewable developers with deep ESA / PPA / capacity-side experience; and operators from PE-backed infrastructure platforms with track records of bespoke energy execution.

Responsibilities

• Architect the capacity and energy solution for each Deca project — selecting the right mix of orchestration paths and leading execution end-to-end.
• Set portfolio-level energy strategy: which paths for which sites, when, and how they integrate with each project's acquisition, development, and customer timeline.
• Serve as the senior Deca interface with hyperscaler energy and infrastructure teams, aligning capacity delivery with the counterparty's certainty, sustainability, and offtake requirements.
• Coordinate cross-functionally with Deca's acquisitions, development, power engineering, procurement, and legal teams, and direct our network of third-party engineers, regulatory counsel, and consultants.
• Build and scale a high-caliber team — including transmission-analytics, utility-engagement, and commercial-execution talent.
• Build Deca's institutional muscle on orchestration — capturing learning across deals so each project sharpens the playbook for the next.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Executive
• Education Level: No Education Listed