Core Responsibilities
- Strategic Negotiations: Lead high-impact, complex commercial and legal negotiations with tier-1 global vendors, defense contractors, and specialized hardware suppliers.
- BOM & Manufacturing Cost Optimization: Deep-dive into complex engineering specifications to reduce BOM costs, identify alternative sourcing strategies, and negotiate volume pricing structures.
- Global Supplier Partnership Ecosystem: Build, structure, and scale long-term strategic agreements, joint-development partnerships, and resilient international supply chains.
- Cross-Functional Synergy: Partner closely with R&D, System Architecture, Hardware Engineering, and Operations to align procurement strategies with product lifecycles and manufacturing rollouts.
- Risk & Continuity Management: Mitigate global supply chain risks, ensure geopolitical compliance, and guarantee material availability for mission-critical hardware.
What You’ll Bring
- 7+ years of senior-level procurement, strategic sourcing, or commercial negotiation experience within Deep-Tech, Defense, Aerospace, or High-Tech Hardware sectors.
- Negotiation Mastery: Proven track record of structuring and closing multi-million dollar, complex agreements with major global corporations and defense entities.
- Financial & Cost Reduction Impact: Demonstrated success in lowering product BOM and manufacturing expenses through strategic renegotiations, dual-sourcing, and value engineering.
- Global Vendor Ecosystem: Deep familiarity with international component distributors, contract manufacturers (EMS), and specialized defense suppliers.
- Hands-on & Strategic Balance: Ability to move effortlessly between high-level vendor strategy and granular, line-item cost analysis.
Advantages
- Deep experience in both defense-grade hardware compliance and fast-paced commercial SaaS/hardware environments.
- Background in leading procurement for defense tech startups during scale-up phases.
- Academic background in Engineering, Business Administration, Systems Engineering, or Supply Chain Management.