Strategic Procurement & Finance Ops Manager

Periodic Labs; Menlo Park (CA); On-site; USD 225,000 - 275,000; Full time

Job summary

Periodic Labs in Menlo Park, CA seeks a Procurement & Finance Operations Manager to own lab procurement, inventory forecasting, spend analytics, and PO workflows as we scale R&D. You’ll build systems to model true experimentation costs and ensure financial discipline across materials, compute, equipment, and overhead.

You’ll collaborate with scientists, engineers, and leadership to automate workflows and implement scalable procurement and inventory solutions for rapid throughput.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of experience in procurement, operational finance, lab operations, supply chain, or related operational roles
• Experience supporting technical, scientific, manufacturing, hardware, or R&D environments
• Strong understanding of budgeting, forecasting, spend tracking, and operational analytics
• Experience owning procurement workflows, purchasing operations, and vendor management
• Experience with PO, accounting, and spend management systems (e.g., Ramp, QuickBooks, NetSuite, SAP, Coupa, Quartzy, etc.)
• Strong systems-thinking mindset with demonstrated process improvement experience
• Comfortable operating in ambiguous, fast-changing startup environments
• Highly organized with exceptional attention to detail
• Strong cross-functional communication skills and ability to work closely with technical teams

Responsibilities

• Own purchasing operations across lab consumables, specialty materials, gases, chemicals, equipment, and operational supplies
• Develop inventory forecasting systems and consumption tracking processes to prevent stockouts and support rapidly scaling experimental throughput
• Build systems to analyze and track the true cost of scientific experiments across materials, compute, equipment utilization, and operational overhead
• Own purchase order generation, invoice reconciliation, and three‑way matching workflows across procurement and accounting processes
• Track operational and capital expenditures against budgets and support forecasting, reporting, and cost optimization initiatives
• Design and implement scalable procurement, inventory, and operational finance systems as the organization grows
• Improve workflows through automation, tooling, inventory tracking systems, dashboards, and process optimization initiatives
• Partner closely with scientists, engineers, lab operations, finance, and leadership teams to support evolving experimental needs
• Manage supplier and vendor relationships, including pricing negotiations, lead times, and purchasing agreements
• Identify operational bottlenecks and help build the infrastructure and processes required to scale high‑throughput R&D environments

Skills

Cross-functional communication

Systems thinking

Startup adaptability

Attention to detail

Education

Bachelor’s degree

Tools

Ramp

QuickBooks

NetSuite

SAP

Coupa

Quartzy

Job description

Periodic Labs in Menlo Park, CA seeks a Procurement & Finance Operations Manager to own lab procurement, inventory forecasting, spend analytics, and PO workflows as we scale R&D. You’ll build systems to model true experimentation costs and ensure financial discipline across materials, compute, equipment, and overhead.

You’ll collaborate with scientists, engineers, and leadership to automate workflows and implement scalable procurement and inventory solutions for rapid throughput.