engineering
Posted May 16Strategic Sourcing Leader - Enterprise & Engineering Technology
at openai
San Francisco, United StatesHybrid
Responsibilities
- - Own strategic supplier negotiations, including major renewals, enterprise license agreements, infrastructure software commitments, security technology agreements, engineering platform agreements, and hardware-related sourcing decisions.
- - Build scalable category tools and frameworks, including category cards, negotiation playbooks, supplier segmentation, renewal calendars, reporting dashboards, and escalation paths.
- - Create cost and commercial structures aligned to OpenAI’s business model, including usage-based pricing, flexible consumption models, pooled commitments, ramp structures, scale protections, and performance-based economics.
Requirements
- experience in strategic sourcing / procurement, with significant depth in enterprise technology, infrastructure software, engineering tools, security technology, IT platforms, hardware, or adjacent technology categories.
- About OpenAI OpenAI is an AI research and deployment company dedicated to ensuring that general-purpose artificial intelligence
Experience
- You might thrive in this role if you: - Have 12+ years of
- - Bring 5+ years of people leadership experience, ideally including leading people managers.
Additional details
- you will: - Lead sourcing strategy and execution across enterprise and engineering technology categories, including infrastructure software, engineering platforms, security technology, enterprise systems, IT, and hardware.
- - Independently define, prioritize, and lead multiple complex sourcing workstreams, shaping supplier strategy and commercial decisions without regular oversight.
- - Manage and develop experienced category leads, creating clarity, improving commercial judgment, and empowering the team to deliver strategic goals without heavy managerial intervention.
- - Partner with senior leaders across the CTO, CISO, and IT organizations to translate technical roadmaps, security requirements, platform dependencies, adoption plans, performance needs, and supplier constraints into sourcing strategies and commercial structures.
- - Advise senior leaders on major supplier decisions by presenting clear deal narratives, financial impact, risk, tradeoffs, supplier context, and recommendations.
- - Set direction for coordinators and category partners supporting quick-turn negotiations, ensuring routine work moves quickly with consistent standards, strong documentation, and appropriate escalation.
- - Establish supplier governance and portfolio reporting across pipeline health, savings, risk, renewal exposure, supplier performance, forecast accuracy, QBRs, escalation management, and value realization.
- - Influence difficult or highly opinionated stakeholders by building trust, clarifying tradeoffs, creating alignment, and positioning sourcing as a strategic partner in technical, security, and commercial decision-making.
- - Have led complex, high-stakes supplier negotiations and can balance cost, leverage, speed, flexibility, risk, security requirements, and long-term partnership value.
- - Can independently lead multiple complex workstreams, prioritize tradeoffs, and shape strategic decisions in ambiguous environments.