Senior Sourcing Specialist- Indirect

xAI; Palo Alto (CA); On-site; USD 90,000 - 115,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity

Comprehensive medical coverage

401(k) retirement plan

Life insurance

Short & long-term disability insurance

Job summary

A progressive procurement organization in Palo Alto seeks a Supply Chain Professional to strategize sourcing and manage supplier relationships. The ideal candidate will have advanced analytical skills and experience in purchasing or supply chain roles. Responsibilities include negotiating contracts, performing market analysis, and optimizing purchasing efficiency. A competitive salary of $90,000 - $115,000 is offered, alongside benefits including equity and comprehensive health coverage.

Qualifications

• Advanced degree with 3+ years of experience or Bachelor's with 5+ years in relevant roles.
• Experience in purchasing, operations, or supply chain management.
• Possess strong technical skills, including current technologies and applications.

Responsibilities

• Create sourcing strategies and manage purchasing categories.
• Develop stakeholder relationships and improve cost efficiency.
• Analyze performance metrics and manage supplier contracts.

Skills

Analytical skills

Communication skills

Negotiation skills

Problem-solving

Stakeholder management

Education

Advanced degree

Bachelor's degree

Tools

MS Office Suite

SQL

PowerBI

Job description

xAI’s mission is to create AI systems that can accurately understand the universe and aid humanity in its pursuit of knowledge. Our team is small, highly motivated, and focused on engineering excellence. This organization is for individuals who appreciate challenging themselves and thrive on curiosity. We operate with a flat organizational structure. All employees are expected to be hands-on and to contribute directly to the company’s mission. Leadership is given to those who show initiative and consistently deliver excellence. Work ethic and strong prioritization skills are important. All employees are expected to have strong communication skills. They should be able to concisely and accurately share knowledge with their teammates.

About the Role:

We are a progressive procurement organization pushing the boundaries of traditional procurement reputation and methodologies. We are looking for individuals who can think outside the box to achieve company objectives regarding value and partnerships with our suppliers. Our organization moves quickly, and you must too. xAI has the unique ability and desire to influence and shape suppliers to be better with us as we challenge our supply chain on cost, quality, and delivery. This individual will support indirect supplier management and SG&A spend reduction initiatives. The purchasing team has aggressive objectives for 2026 that positively impact our product and bottom line. We are looking for the right person who is equipped and ready for these challenges to join our team.

Responsibilities

• Strategy/Sourcing: Create sourcing strategies for assigned categories to reduce risk and meet targets for the purchasing department including but not limited to payment terms, cash targets, and cost savings
• Stakeholder Management: Develop and maintain key internal stakeholder relationships to create strategic sourcing models that optimize the value of products and services that support business unit requirements to maintain continuous cost reduction programs for controllable expenditures. Communicate, manage, and drive compliance to category strategies. Provides solutions to a wide range of difficult problems
• Change Management: Successfully partner across functions and with senior internal stakeholders and external suppliers to drive results, influence others and facilitate change management across the company.
• Analysis: Responsible for advanced quantitative analysis to identify financial impacts of decisions and performance for category managed. Perform business process analysis and develop models to improve cost. Collaborate with stakeholders to define SLAs and KPIs for suppliers and measure the appropriate criteria, such as delivery of business results, cost reduction, quality, and timeliness of delivery
• Conduct research, perform benchmarking, and gather market analysis for assigned categories
• Contract Management: Responsible for authoring contract documents with the Legal Department. Management of contracts ensuring performance of the supplier to contract obligations. Understand interrelationships between contracts and terms while applying creativity and sound business reasoning to interpret the application of contracts to business needs
• Negotiations: Utilize negotiations to maximize value and cost savings benefits while lowering risk
• Supplier Management: Manage preferred suppliers for assigned categories. Create and implement related management programs to develop, continuously improve, manage the performance of, and monitor KPIs of the supply base
• Tactical Purchasing - Place purchase orders and resolve blocked invoices related to assigned categories
• Performs assignments independently with instruction limited to the results expected.
• Efficiency: Develop and lead efforts to reduce the number of transactions for assigned categories

Required Qualifications

• Advanced degree and 3+ years of experience working in one or more of the following; or bachelor’s degree and 5+ years of experience working in one or more of the following:
• Purchasing
• Material or production planning
• Operations or supply chain management
• Material cost control

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience in a purchasing or supply chain role
• Technical skills in current technologies and applications (e.g. MS Office Suite, SQL, PowerBI, etc.)
• Experience with Construction, Facilities or Contingent Labor
• Exceptional analytical and organizational skills
• Ability to prioritize appropriately to meet internal customer and company needs
• Effective written and verbal communication skills, with a strong ability to communicate with all levels of internal personnel
• Detail-oriented, self-motivated, and able to respond quickly to a fast-moving and ever-changing environment
• Ability to conduct all activities with the highest integrity

$90,000 - $115,000

Base salary is just one part of our total rewards package at xAI, which also includes equity, comprehensive medical, vision, and dental coverage, access to a 401(k) retirement plan, short & long-term disability insurance, life insurance, and various other discounts and perks.

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