Procurement Architect for High-Growth Tech

Baseten; San Francisco, Northern (CA, KY); Hybrid; USD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive equity and compensation

Healthcare coverage for dependents

Flexible PTO

Parental leave

Fertility and family-building stipend

401(k)

Equity exposure to ML startups

Job summary

Baseten seeks a Procurement Lead to build the function from the ground up. You will design scalable procurement workflows, policies, and an operating model that supports rapid growth while partnering with Finance, Legal, Security, Compliance, and IT across the business.

You will lead vendor onboarding, RFPs, and contract negotiations, establishing controls and SOX-aligned processes as Baseten scales. This role is in San Francisco or New York with in-person work 3+ days weekly.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of progressive procurement experience, including building or maturing a procurement function at a high-growth tech company.
• Proven experience designing procurement processes, policies, and systems from the ground up.
• Experience running RFPs and vendor selection on behalf of business stakeholders.
• Experience with strategic sourcing and vendor contract negotiations across multiple spend categories.
• Experience partnering with Security, Compliance, and Legal on vendor risk assessments.
• Comfortable operating with significant ambiguity and building structure where none exists today.
• Strong cross-functional partnership skills with Finance, Legal, Security, Compliance, IT, and business owners as a partner, not friction.
• Based in San Francisco or New York, with the ability to work in-person 3+ days per week

Responsibilities

• Design and implement Baseten's first company-wide procurement process, approval routing, and other workflows.
• Establish procurement policies (spend thresholds, approval authority, competitive bidding) tailored to a high-growth business.
• Design processes that scale with the business without adding friction or slowing down how teams buy.
• Define procurement's operating model and roadmap as the function and team scale.
• Build out procurement workflows within our existing P2P platform, including requisition, approval, and purchase order processes.
• Build reporting and visibility into company-wide spend by category, vendor, and department.
• Own vendor onboarding, due diligence, and risk assessment across the company's vendor base.
• Lead or support strategic sourcing, RFPs, and contract negotiations on behalf of business owners, freeing up their time and capacity.
• Build a vendor management framework covering performance, risk, and renewals.
• Partner with Legal, Security, Compliance, IT, and business owners to understand purchasing needs and build workflows
• Act as a trusted advisor and extension of business teams on sourcing strategy, RFPs, and vendor selection

Skills

Procurement leadership

RFP management

Vendor risk management

Strategic sourcing

Cross-functional collaboration

SOX/compliance knowledge

Ambiguity management

In-person collaboration (SF/NY)

Tools

Procurement platforms

Spend management tools

Job description

Baseten seeks a Procurement Lead to build the function from the ground up. You will design scalable procurement workflows, policies, and an operating model that supports rapid growth while partnering with Finance, Legal, Security, Compliance, and IT across the business.

You will lead vendor onboarding, RFPs, and contract negotiations, establishing controls and SOX-aligned processes as Baseten scales. This role is in San Francisco or New York with in-person work 3+ days weekly.