Location: Bellevue, Washington

Employment Type: Direct Hire | Onsite

Salary: $180,000–$220,000 base salary + discretionary performance bonus

Relocation Assistance: Available

Position Overview

Innovar Group is partnering with a rapidly growing developer to hire a Senior Real Estate Development Manager to lead large-scale, ground-up development projects across North America.

This role will manage complex sites through the early development lifecycle, from site control and acquisition due diligence through zoning, entitlements, permitting, site infrastructure, utility coordination, and construction readiness.

The ideal candidate has experience in industrial real estate development, commercial real estate development, land development, logistics/distribution, advanced manufacturing, technology campuses, mission-critical facilities, or other large-scale ground-up development environments.

We are looking for a development professional who has personally advanced complex sites through municipal and regulatory approval processes, managed external development consultants, coordinated critical site infrastructure, and identified risks before they impact cost, schedule, or project feasibility.

Data center experience is preferred, but not required.

What You'll Do

• Lead large-scale ground-up real estate development projects from site control and due diligence through construction readiness.
• Manage comprehensive site due diligence, including zoning, land use, environmental conditions, utilities, infrastructure capacity, access, and overall development feasibility.
• Develop and execute zoning, entitlement, land-use, and permitting strategies.
• Coordinate with municipalities, planning departments, permitting authorities, government agencies, civil engineers, consultants, attorneys, and community stakeholders.
• Manage site infrastructure requirements, including electric utility service, water, wastewater, fiber, roads, transportation, and site access.
• Identify development risks and establish mitigation strategies to protect project schedules, budgets, and investment objectives.
• Manage third-party civil engineers, environmental consultants, planners, architects, land-use consultants, attorneys, and other development partners.
• Oversee site studies, applications, development agreements, permits, environmental reviews, and regulatory approvals.
• Maintain development schedules, budgets, milestone trackers, decision logs, and risk registers.
• Evaluate jurisdictional requirements and determine the most effective path for securing development approvals.
• Support site acquisition and investment decisions by evaluating development feasibility, cost, schedule, infrastructure requirements, and risk.
• Present development recommendations, risks, timelines, and major project decisions to senior leadership.
• Partner with real estate, site selection, design, engineering, construction, finance, legal, commercial, and sustainability teams.
• Ensure projects are fully documented and prepared for successful transition into design and construction.
• Help establish standardized development processes, reporting tools, and best practices across a growing North American portfolio.

What We're Looking For

• Bachelor's degree in real estate, civil engineering, architecture, construction management, urban planning, business, or a related discipline.
• Significant experience in real estate development, industrial development, commercial development, land development, or large-scale ground-up site development.
• Demonstrated experience with site due diligence, zoning, entitlements, permitting, land use, and regulatory approvals.
• Experience advancing greenfield development projects from site acquisition or site control through construction readiness.
• Experience working directly with municipalities, planning departments, permitting authorities, government agencies, civil engineering firms, and third-party development consultants.
• Experience coordinating utilities and site infrastructure as part of a large-scale real estate development project.
• Experience managing civil, environmental, planning, architectural, and other third-party consultants.
• Strong understanding of development schedules, budgets, feasibility analysis, risk management, and project milestones.
• Ability to identify and mitigate risks related to land, entitlements, permitting, infrastructure, cost, and schedule.
• Strong financial and commercial judgment with the ability to support site acquisition and development decisions.
• Ability to manage multiple complex development projects and competing priorities simultaneously.
• Excellent stakeholder management, negotiation, communication, and presentation skills.
• Willingness to travel as required to support projects throughout North America.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience developing large-scale industrial, logistics/distribution, advanced manufacturing, technology campus, mission-critical, or data center projects.
• Experience with large greenfield sites or multi-building campus developments.
• Experience navigating complex zoning, entitlement, land-use, and permitting processes across multiple jurisdictions.
• Experience with projects requiring significant site infrastructure and utility coordination.
• Knowledge of environmental reviews, conditional-use permits, development agreements, public hearings, and municipal approval processes.
• Experience with speculative or build-to-suit development.
• Experience transitioning projects from development into design and construction.
• Data center, hyperscale, colocation, or mission-critical development experience is a plus, but not required.

Ideal Candidate Profile

The strongest candidate is a real estate development professional who has personally advanced complex, ground-up projects through:

Site Control / Acquisition → Due Diligence → Zoning & Entitlements → Permitting → Site Infrastructure & Utilities → Construction Readiness

Candidates do not need prior data center experience. We are particularly interested in professionals who have successfully developed large-scale industrial, commercial, logistics, manufacturing, technology, or mission-critical sites and can bring that development expertise into a rapidly growing portfolio.