Strategic Sourcing Manager, Data Center Infrastructure, Mechanical

About the Team

OpenAI's Industrial Compute organization is building the world's most advanced AI infrastructure ecosystem. Working alongside leading cloud providers, engineering firms, construction partners, utilities, and equipment manufacturers, we are delivering hyperscale AI campuses that enable the next generation of frontier AI models.

The Strategic Sourcing team develops and executes the commercial strategies that ensure our infrastructure programs have reliable access to the equipment, materials, and strategic partners needed to deliver at unprecedented scale. We partner closely with Infrastructure Delivery, Capacity Planning, Design Engineering, Hardware Operations, Finance, Legal, and our external suppliers to build a resilient global supply network capable of supporting Industrial Compute's long-term growth.

As we continue expanding globally, strategic sourcing becomes a critical competitive advantage, ensuring our infrastructure programs remain cost-effective, resilient, and capable of executing against aggressive deployment timelines.

About the Role

We are seeking a Strategic Sourcing Manager, Data Center Infrastructure to lead sourcing strategy for the critical infrastructure systems that power Industrial Compute campuses. This role will develop commercial strategies, negotiate strategic supplier agreements, and manage relationships across engineering, construction, manufacturing, and infrastructure partners responsible for delivering mission-critical facilities.

You will work closely with Infrastructure Delivery, Capacity Planning, Engineering, Finance, Construction, and external suppliers to ensure Industrial Compute has the capacity, supplier relationships, and commercial frameworks required to support rapid global expansion.

The ideal candidate has experience sourcing major infrastructure systems for hyperscale data centers, mission-critical facilities, industrial construction, semiconductor manufacturing, energy infrastructure, or similarly complex capital projects.

Key Responsibilities

- Develop long-term sourcing strategies for data center infrastructure systems supporting Industrial Compute.

- Lead strategic supplier selection, RFx processes, commercial negotiations, and contract execution for major infrastructure programs.

- Build and maintain executive relationships with key suppliers, manufacturers, EPC firms, integrators, and infrastructure vendors.

- Partner with Infrastructure Delivery and Engineering to align sourcing strategies with project schedules, technical requirements, and deployment priorities.

- Collaborate with Capacity Planning to ensure supplier capacity aligns with long-term infrastructure roadmaps.

- Evaluate supplier capabilities across manufacturing capacity, execution quality, financial health, delivery performance, and operational maturity.

- Identify and mitigate supply chain risks through supplier diversification, long-term agreements, alternative sourcing strategies, and capacity reservations.

- Monitor global market conditions, manufacturing trends, commodity impacts, geopolitical risks, and supplier ecosystems that may affect infrastructure delivery.

- Develop supplier scorecards and performance metrics across quality, cost, schedule, responsiveness, safety, and execution.

- Support executive sourcing decisions through financial analysis, market intelligence, scenario planning, and supplier benchmarking.

- Partner with Legal and Finance to structure scalable commercial agreements that support Industrial Compute's long-term infrastructure strategy.

Qualifications

- Bachelor's degree in Supply Chain, Engineering, Construction Management, Business, Operations, Finance, or a related field.

- 8+ years of experience in strategic sourcing, procurement, supplier management, or infrastructure supply chain management.

- Experience sourcing major infrastructure systems, industrial equipment, mission-critical facilities, or large capital projects.

- Proven experience negotiating complex commercial agreements with strategic suppliers.

- Strong understanding of supplier qualification, contract strategy, supplier performance management, and sourcing governance.

- Experience partnering with engineering, construction, finance, legal, and operations organizations.

- Excellent analytical, financial modeling, negotiation, and executive communication skills.

Preferred Skills

Experience sourcing one or more of the following infrastructure systems:

- Prefabricated electrical skids and e-houses

- Modular data center infrastructure

- Modular cooling plants and their components (Heat exchangers, pumps, chillers, VFD)

- Experience working with different forms of cooling (air and water cooled chillers, dry or adiabatic coolers, CRAH, CRAC, Air Handling Units)

- Structural steel, enclosure systems and fabrication processes

- Steel, stainless steel piping and components (valves, control valves, flanges)

Additionally, we'd value:

- Experience supporting hyper-scale cloud, AI infrastructure, semiconductor, energy, or advanced manufacturing programs.

- Familiarity with long-lead equipment planning and supplier capacity management.

- Experience working with global supplier networks across North America, Europe, and Asia.

- Experience working with EPC, design-build, or integrated project delivery partners

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 https://cdn.openai.com/policies/eeo-policy-statement.pdf.

Background checks for applicants will be administered in accordance with applicable law, and qualified applicants with arrest or conviction records will be considered for employment consistent with those laws, including the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance for Employers, and the California Fair Chance Act, for US-based candidates. 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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