Strategic Sourcing Manager

Vercel; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 150,000 - 180,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive equity

Healthcare package

Mentorship & events

Flexible time off

WFH budget

Job summary

Vercel, based in San Francisco, seeks a Strategic Sourcing Manager to own cloud infrastructure deals and AI provider contracts, balancing cost with flexibility. You will collaborate with Engineering, Legal, Finance, and Security to design pricing, forecast demand, and drive high‑volume negotiations while building AI‑powered sourcing playbooks.

If you thrive in a fast‑growth environment and can translate technical needs into sourcing strategy, join us.

Qualifications

• Strong analytical skills — rate/unit-cost analysis, TCO modeling, pricing model design.
• Clear, direct communicator with executives and on the negotiating table.
• Experience owning cloud infrastructure deals, including negotiating with major providers.

Responsibilities

• Lead sourcing strategy and commercial negotiations with cloud providers.
• Structure IaaS, compute, storage, and capacity agreements.
• Design pricing structures that scale with growth.
• Own AI infrastructure and hyperscaler relationships.
• Forecast demand with Engineering, Finance, Legal, and Security.
• Develop AI-powered sourcing tools and playbooks.
• Define AI-native sourcing function as spend grows.

Skills

Analytical

Negotiation

Communicator

Strategic thinking

Tools

AI pricing tools

Job description

About Vercel:

Vercel is the agentic infrastructure company. We free people and agents to ship what's next. For more than a decade, Vercel has shaped how the web is built. As the team behind Next.js, v0, and AI SDK, we create products that help builders move from idea to production with speed, security, and exceptional developer experience. Now, software is entering a new era, and the next generation of products will not just be used by people. They will be built, extended, and operated by agents. We are building the platform for that future, trusted by companies like OpenAI, PayPal, Ramp, Supreme, and millions of developers worldwide. Whether you're building our products, supporting our customers, growing our community, or shaping our story, you'll help define what comes next.

About the Role:

We are looking for a Strategic Sourcing Manager to join our Procurement team. You will own strategic sourcing for critical cloud infrastructure and AI providers, helping Vercel secure the compute, storage, and infrastructure capacity we need as we scale. You will develop commercial models that balance competitive economics with flexibility, avoiding commitments that constrain growth while creating transparent pricing that improves as our usage scales. Vercel’s spend and revenue are scaling fast, and our sourcing motion has to scale with it — you'll know when to move fast versus when to hold the line on process, partnering closely with Legal, FP&A, and Security to get deals done without unnecessary friction. This role reports to the Head of Procurement. If you're based within a pre-determined commuting distance of one of our offices (SF, NY, London, or Berlin), the role includes in-office anchor days on Monday, Tuesday, and Friday.

What You Will Do:

• Lead sourcing strategy and commercial negotiations with cloud infrastructure providers and hyperscalers.
• Structure complex IaaS, compute, storage, and capacity agreements that balance committed spend, consumption growth, flexibility, and long-term unit economics.
• Design pricing structures (tiered, committed-volume, usage-based) that reflect how Vercel actually consumes vendor services, and that scale with our growth trajectory.
• Own strategic sourcing for emerging AI infrastructure and hyperscaler relationships, including commercial models supporting high-volume or customer-facing AI workloads.
• Partner with Engineering, Finance, Legal, and other teams to forecast demand, understand technical requirements, evaluate suppliers, and translate Vercel's growth into sourcing leverage.
• Analyze provider pricing, consumption patterns, contract structures, and market dynamics to identify opportunities to improve economics and reduce commercial risk.
• Build and maintain AI-powered sourcing tools and playbooks (leveraging Claude, V0, etc) for redlining, negotiation prep, benchmarking, and vendor reporting — raising throughput and deal quality across the team.
• Help define what an AI-native sourcing function looks like at Vercel as spend and deal volume continue to climb.

About You:

• Strong analytical skills — rate/unit-cost analysis, TCO modeling, pricing model design — able to find the real economics underneath a vendor proposal.
• Comfortable operating at pace: high deal volume, ambiguity, imperfect information, and a bias toward execution over perfection.
• Clear, direct communicator with executives, both internally and across the negotiating table.
• You have significant strategic sourcing experience owning the cloud infrastructure deals, including direct experience negotiating with AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, Oracle, or comparable infrastructure providers.
• You understand cloud infrastructure commercial models, including IaaS, compute, storage, consumption-based pricing, committed spend, discounts, and capacity agreements.
• You have led complex, high-value negotiations where rapidly changing consumption makes forecasting and long-term commitments challenging.
• You can evaluate the tradeoffs between commitment, flexibility, unit economics, pricing transparency, and negotiating leverage as infrastructure usage scales.
• You have experience partnering with technical and financial stakeholders to translate infrastructure requirements and forecasts into sourcing and negotiation strategies.
• You have experience managing strategic supplier relationships and contracts through negotiation, execution, consumption monitoring, and renewal.

Bonus If You:

• Have experience sourcing AI/ML infrastructure, data services, or technical services for an engineering-heavy organization.
• Have negotiated directly with AI hyperscalers or providers of large-scale AI compute and inference infrastructure.
• Have experience sourcing SaaS and other enterprise software alongside infrastructure.

Benefits:

• Competitive compensation package, including equity.
• Inclusive Healthcare Package.
• Learn and Grow - we provide mentorship and send you to events that help you build your network and skills.
• Flexible Time Off.
• We will provide you the gear you need to do your role, and a WFH budget for you to outfit your space as needed.

The San Francisco, CA base pay range for this role is $150,000 - $180,000. Actual salary will be based on job-related skills, experience, and location. Compensation outside of San Francisco may be adjusted based on employee location. The total compensation package may include benefits, equity-based compensation, and eligibility for a company bonus or variable pay program depending on the role.

Vercel is committed to fostering and empowering an inclusive community within our organization. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, gender expression or identity, sexual orientation, national origin, citizenship, age, marital status, veteran status, disability status, or any other characteristic protected by law. Vercel encourages everyone to apply for our available positions, even if they don't necessarily check every box on the job description.