Strategic Sourcing Lead, Network Infrastructure

F5; San Jose (CA); On-site; USD 164,000 - 246,000; Full time

Job summary

F5 is seeking a strategic sourcing leader to own end-to-end procurement for network hardware supporting our global PoP and data center expansion. You will partner with Capacity Engineering to ensure hardware availability, build vendor relationships, and negotiate commercial agreements that pace the build schedule.

You’ll manage supplier engagement, contract structuring, and cross-functional collaboration with engineering, finance, and legal, turning capacity signals into sourcing decisions and

Qualifications

• 8+ years in strategic sourcing or procurement for data center or networks.
• Proven success negotiating vendor contracts for large-scale data centers.
• Technical fluency in network hardware to evaluate proposals.
• Strong cost optimization, risk mitigation, and on-time delivery focus.
• Experience structuring multi-vendor deals and driving SLA accountability.
• Clear executive-ready communication skills.
• Hyperscale or SaaS infra experience.
• Network architecture depth to reason about capacity.
• Broad infrastructure literacy across network, security, compute.
• Strong analytical and modeling skills with capacity models.

Responsibilities

• Own end-to-end sourcing strategy for network hardware.
• Translate forecasted demand into sourcing plans and delivery commitments.
• Negotiate and manage contracts with OEMs and global suppliers.
• Identify supply chain risks and secure optionality.
• Collaborate with engineering, legal, finance, and procurement.
• Develop competitive commercial strategies for PoP expansion.
• Provide vendor evaluation input to ensure alignment with data center design.
• Track sourcing progress and report milestones to leadership.
• Maintain sourcing documentation and supplier scorecards.

Skills

Sourcing strategy

Vendor contracts

Network hardware

Cost optimization

Multi-vendor deals

Executive communication

Hyperscale SaaS

Network architecture

Infrastructure literacy

Modeling skills

Tools

Python

SQL

Excel

Job description

F5 is seeking a strategic sourcing leader to own end-to-end procurement for network hardware supporting our global PoP and data center expansion. You will partner with Capacity Engineering to ensure hardware availability, build vendor relationships, and negotiate commercial agreements that pace the build schedule.

You’ll manage supplier engagement, contract structuring, and cross-functional collaboration with engineering, finance, and legal, turning capacity signals into sourcing decisions and