Procurement Lead

Baseten; San Francisco, Northern (CA, KY); On-site; 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

ABOUT BASETEN

Baseten powers mission-critical inference for the world's most dynamic AI companies, like Cursor, Notion, OpenEvidence, Abridge, Clay, Gamma and Writer. By uniting applied AI research, flexible infrastructure, and seamless developer tooling, we enable companies operating at the frontier of AI to bring cutting-edge models into production. We're growing quickly and recently raised our $1.5B Series F, led by Altimeter Capital, Conviction Partners, and Spark Capital. Join us and help build the platform engineers turn to to ship AI products.

THE ROLE

We're looking for a Procurement Lead to build Baseten's procurement function from the ground up. This is a foundational, high-ownership role for someone who wants to define how a company runs procurement, not inherit an existing process.

As the company scales across engineering, GTM, and corporate functions, we need to build purchasing workflows and vendor relationships. This is a rare, critical-moment hire: you'll set the leading-practice processes, systems, and policies that the company runs on as it continues to grow, with the mandate and dedicated focus to build something built to scale.

This role exists to make procurement a source of leverage for the business, not friction. Your goal is to build scalable process, take on vendor management and RFP work that today sits informally with individual teams, and free up business owners' time and capacity, all while building the guardrails the company needs as it grows. You'll partner closely with Finance, Legal, Security, Compliance, IT, and business owners across the company, and you'll be judged on whether teams feel supported and unblocked, not slowed down.

RESPONSIBILITIES

Procurement Strategy and Process

• Design and implement Baseten's first company-wide procurement process, approval routing, and other workflows
• Establish procurement policies (spend thresholds, approval authority, competitive bidding requirements) 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

Systems and Tooling

• 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

Vendor Management and Sourcing

• Own vendor onboarding, due diligence, and risk assessment across the company's vendor base, partnering with Security, Compliance, and Legal on vendor risk reviews
• 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

Cross-Functional Partnership

• Partner with Legal, Security, Compliance, IT, and business owners across the company to understand purchasing needs and build workflows that fit how each team actually operates
• Act as a trusted advisor and extension of business teams on sourcing strategy, RFPs, and vendor selection, not a gatekeeper that slows deals down

Compliance and Controls

• Establish procurement controls that support audit readiness, SOX compliance, and security and data privacy requirements as the company matures, in partnership with Legal, Security, and Compliance

REQUIREMENTS

• 8+ years of progressive procurement experience, including experience building or significantly maturing a procurement function at a high-growth technology company
• Proven experience designing procurement processes, policies, and systems from the ground up
• Experience running RFPs and vendor selection processes on behalf of business stakeholders
• Experience with strategic sourcing and vendor contract negotiation 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, able to work with Finance, Legal, Security, Compliance, IT, and business owners as a partner, not a source of friction
• Based in San Francisco or New York, with the ability to work in-person 3+ days per week

BONUS

• Experience with modern procurement and spend management platforms with AI-enabled functionalities
• Experience operating in a high-growth business
• Familiarity with SOX controls and audit requirements as they relate to procurement

BENEFITS

• Competitive compensation, including meaningful equity.
• 100% coverage of medical, dental, and vision insurance for employee and dependents
• Flexible PTO policy including company wide Winter Break (our offices are closed from Christmas Eve to New Year's Day!)
• Paid parental leave
• Fertility and family-building stipend through Carrot
• Company-facilitated 401(k)
• Exposure to a variety of ML startups, offering unparalleled learning and networking opportunities.

At Baseten, we are committed to fostering a diverse and inclusive workplace. We provide equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants without regard to race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, age, genetic information, disability, or veteran status.

We are an Equal Opportunity Employer and will consider qualified applicants with criminal histories in a manner consistent with applicable law (by example, the requirements of the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, where applicable).