Hardware Strategic Sourcing & Partnerships Manager

About the Team

OpenAI’s Hardware organization develops silicon and system-level solutions designed for the unique demands of advanced AI workloads. The team is responsible for building the next generation of AI-native silicon & systems while working closely with software and research partners to co-design hardware tightly integrated with AI models. In addition to delivering unique AI systems for OpenAI’s supercomputing infrastructure, the team also creates custom design tools and methodologies that accelerate innovation and enable hardware optimized specifically for AI.

About the Role

We’re seeking a seasoned Hardware Strategic Sourcing Manager to define and manage vendor and partner engagements for the hardware design team. Reporting to the Head of Partnerships & Strategic Sourcing, you’ll leverage your expertise in AI full-rack system supply chains to design sourcing strategies, negotiate agreements, and manage critical supplier relationships. Your work will directly enable the hardware design team to expand compute, networking, and storage capabilities for OpenAI’s infrastructure.

This role is based in San Francisco, CA. We use a hybrid work model of 3 days in the office per week and offer relocation assistance to new employees.

In this role, you will:

• Devise and implement sourcing strategies for hardware and related services—including cloud—aligned with OpenAI’s financial, operational, and technology goals.

• Lead RFPs, supplier evaluations, and partner selection with clear criteria and structured engagement models.

• Manage key supplier relationships end-to-end, including contract negotiations, renewals, and performance management against defined KPIs.

• Partner with engineering, finance, legal, and security teams to ensure sourcing decisions meet technical requirements, budget approvals, compliance, and risk considerations.

• Drive efficiency through process design and sourcing systems, ensuring data-driven decision-making and continuous improvement.

• Partner with business system teams to define ERP, MRP, PLM system requirements

• Build long-term partnerships and identify opportunities for strategic investments across the hardware supply landscape.

You might thrive in this role if you have:

• Experience: 10+ years in technology procurement, with depth in hardware and cloud services at fast-growing technology companies.

• Technical Credibility: Ability to engage engineering teams on technical requirements and translate them into sourcing strategies.

• Supplier & Stakeholder Management: Proven track record of negotiating custom agreements and maintaining strong, trust-based supplier partnerships.

• Strategic & Analytical Insight: Skilled at developing long-term sourcing strategies, managing cost/risk tradeoffs, and generating actionable analytics to guide decisions.

• Collaboration & Leadership: Adept at working cross-functionally and proactively defining & refining procurement practices to drive efficiency and impact.

• Mission-Driven Focus: Commitment to supporting OpenAI’s mission of ensuring artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity.

To comply with U.S. export control laws and regulations, candidates for this role may need to meet certain legal status requirements as provided in those laws and regulations.

About OpenAI

OpenAI is an AI research and deployment company dedicated to ensuring that general-purpose artificial intelligence benefits all of humanity. We push the boundaries of the capabilities of AI systems and seek to safely deploy them to the world through our products. AI is an extremely powerful tool that must be created with safety and human needs at its core, and to achieve our mission, we must encompass and value the many different perspectives, voices, and experiences that form the full spectrum of humanity. 

We are an equal opportunity employer, and we do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, age, veteran status, disability, genetic information, or other applicable legally protected characteristic.

For additional information, please see OpenAI’s Affirmative Action and Equal Employment Opportunity Policy Statement.

Qualified applicants with arrest or conviction records will be considered for employment in accordance with applicable law, including the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance for Employers, and the California Fair Chance Act. For unincorporated Los Angeles County workers: we reasonably believe that criminal history may have a direct, adverse and negative relationship with the following job duties, potentially resulting in the withdrawal of a conditional offer of employment: protect computer hardware entrusted to you from theft, loss or damage; return all computer hardware in your possession (including the data contained therein) upon termination of employment or end of assignment; and maintain the confidentiality of proprietary, confidential, and non-public information. In addition, job duties require access to secure and protected information technology systems and related data security obligations.

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