Procurement Specialist

EF Education First Ltd.; Boston (MA); Hybrid; USD 64,000 - 70,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Four weeks paid vacation

Ten paid holidays

Business travel opportunities

401(k) match

Medical, dental, vision coverage

Fertility care support

Wellness benefits

Employee discounts

Job summary

EF Education First Ltd. in Massachusetts is seeking a Procurement Specialist for the North American region. You will negotiate contracts, manage supplier relationships, and help map strategy to secure cost-effective, quality accommodation solutions.

The role emphasizes budgeting, safety and quality checks, and collaboration across tours departments. This is a hybrid position with Friday work-from-home flexibility and in-office collaboration Monday through Thursday.

Qualifications

• 1-2+ years relevant work experience preferred
• Previous procurement or negotiation experience is preferred
• Strong interest in the tourism industry
• Passion for travel

Responsibilities

• Market expertise: foster North American market knowledge through networking, research, competition awareness.
• Source, contract, & allocate: identify, acquire, and allocate services and suppliers for groups in North America.
• Supplier relationship management: maintain positive relationships with suppliers in North America, aligning with cross-product sourcing.
• Inventory management: coordinate with Inventory and operations to align needs with volume, itinerary strategy, and product priorities.
• Customer Experience: balance cost and customer experience to meet cross-product requirements.
• Budget & Cost control: devise, monitor, and adhere to budgets.
• Strategy creation: analyze market trends to build a scalable supplier portfolio and collaborations.
• Safety & Quality Control: ensure suppliers meet safety and quality criteria.
• Administrative: manage contracts, allocations and updates; ensure safe handover to Production specialists.

Job description

Hiring Manager: Kelci Williams

Target Start Date: November 2, 2026

**For consideration, applicants must live/relocate to the state of Massachusetts or within commutable distance to our Cambridge, MA office. Enjoy the flexibility of working from home on Fridays, while collaborating in the office from Monday through Thursday.**

The Role:

As the Procurement Specialist for our North American region, you are responsible for ensuring cost-effective, quality accommodation solutions (from hostels to National Park lodges to 4-star hotels) that are in line with each product’s identity. You’ll do this by negotiating contracts, managing relationships with suppliers, helping map strategy, contributing to itinerary development, and managing budgets. You are analytically strong, and love maximizing negotiations to aid your strategic objectives.

Core Responsibilities:

• Market expertise: Further foster your existing strong North American market knowledge and expertise through constant networking and research, competition awareness, and industry insights
• Source, contract, & allocate: Identify, acquire, and allocate all services and suppliers for our groups in the North American market.
• Supplier relationship management: Maintain a positive and constructive relationship with existing and potential suppliers in the North American market, in keeping with cross-product sourcing strategy
• Inventory management:Work closely with Inventory and relevant operations teams to tie operational needs to all products overall volume, itinerary strategy, and product development priorities
• Customer Experience: Work to balance cost and customer experience and achieve cross-product requirements
• Budget & Cost control: Devise, monitor, and adhere to budgets
• Strategy creation: Analysis of market & industry trends, competition analysis & awareness, build a robust, scalable supplier portfolio, maximize chain relationships, collaborate across tours departments
• Safety & Quality Control: Ensure suppliers fulfill all safety and quality criteria
• Administrative: Ensure all contracts, allocations and supplier updates are managed and that all safety and cost guidelines are adhered to. Ensure a smooth handover of information to Production specialists and Tour Directors.

Key Attributes:

• Networked: You’re an influential communicator who cultivates relationships and builds upon your existing networks in the North American Marketwith both internal and external stakeholders. You’ve got a finger on the pulse of competition, industry trends, and changes in the market.
• Strategic: You’re forward-thinking, analytical, and responsible. You’re cost-conscious, efficient, and capable of executing the vision of multiple products.
• Effective:You have a sense of responsibility and manage your time well.You’re comfortable working in the details, particularly with numbers and legal jargon. You can operate in the detail, while staying highly organized and work through volumes of work.
• Negotiation skills: You’re able to leverage your network and use the tools at your disposal to strike a deal and execute in line with your overall strategy.
• AI fluency and comfort – you use AI tools confidently to streamline research, analyze data, and draft communications, while applying sound judgment to validate outputs
• Willingness to travel: You’re prepared to spend time on the road learning your market and cultivating relationships.
• Language skills: Strong written and verbal English communication skills; full fluency in English required

Qualifications:

• 1-2+ years relevant work experience preferred
• Previous procurement or negotiation experience is preferred
• Strong interest in the tourism industry
• Passion for travel

Why you’ll love working here: Perks, Benefits, and more!

This is the most fun, high caliber place you’ll ever work. Ask any employee why they love EF (whether they’ve been here 10 minutes or 10 years) and they’ll probably tell you the same thing: it’s the people. When you work at EF, you join a purpose-driven, international and energetic community that thrives on continuous learning, fearless innovation and mutual support.

In addition, you can expect:

• Commitment to professional growth: robust monthly calendar of trainings and workshops
• Four weeks paid vacation your first year, ten paid holidays, and two floating holidays
• Exciting business travel opportunities
• 25% company match on your 401(k) contributions
• Market-leading medical, dental and vision coverage, along with options for life and disability insurance, accident and hospital insurance, legal and pet insurance
• Dependent care, healthcare and commuter Flex Spending Accounts (FSAs)
• Access to fertility care and family-building support
• Wellness benefits including a yearly fitness reimbursement
• Frequent social and learning events, including access to our employee-run resource groups
• Robust Employee Assistance Program
• Tenure-based sabbatical eligibility
• EF Product Discounts (discounts on travel, international language schools, Au Pair program and more)
• Discounts at local venues and businesses
• Amazing offices designed to match the caliber of the people who work there, plus the flexibility of working from home on Fridays.
• Compensation: The range for this role is $64,000-$70,000, based on experience.