Supply Chain Manager, R&D

Fluidstack; Austin (TX); On-site; USD 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

Fluidstack is seeking a senior procurement professional to own long-lead purchases for the Thermofluids R&D program. You will qualify suppliers, dual-source critical parts, and manage Make-vs-Buy decisions with engineering to avoid schedule delays.

You will partner with suppliers to secure production readiness and keep the fleet agile as we scale, balancing cost, risk, and timing in a fast-paced hardware environment.

Qualifications

• You’ve bought long-lead engineered hardware where the lead time, not the unit price, was the thing that decided the program.
• You’ve qualified a second source for a part that everyone told you could only come from one place.
• You’ve sat with engineers early enough to change a design for supply reasons, rather than being handed a finished BOM and a date.
• You’ve carried a supplier through a prototype build while the drawings changed underneath them, and kept the relationship intact.
• You’ve told a program its date was wrong and brought the lead-time evidence that settled the argument.

Responsibilities

• Own long-lead procurement for the compressor program: high-speed motors, magnetic bearings, forgings, castings, pressure vessels and test instrumentation.
• Qualify and dual-source the vendors sitting on the critical path, where a single motor or bearing lead time can set the prototype date for the whole program.
• Buy for the prototype and the production ramp at the same time, so the first machine does not quietly lock the fleet into a sole source.
• Run the make-versus-buy calls with engineering, including which parts come off our own floor and which go outside.
• Keep procurement off the critical path of a schedule that runs concept to production far faster than this industry does.

Skills

Procurement

Supplier management

Vendor qualification

Cross-functional collaboration

Tools

ERP systems

Job description

About Fluidstack

We exist to make humanity more free. For most of human history, you farmed or you starved. Technology gave people more time for the things they wanted to do, instead of things they had to do. Powerful AI will be the biggest lever for human choice we've ever built - but only if models are aligned with what humanity actually wants. There are groups building AI who don't share these goals. Whoever deploys frontier compute infrastructure fastest will decide whether AI expands human freedom or shrinks it.

We're singularly focused on delivering 10 to 100s of GWs of compute faster than anyone else, rethinking every layer of the stack. We acquire power, design and build data centers, and operate them - with teams spanning hardware and software. Speed and scale are our key differentiators. Come be a part of building civilization-scale infrastructure for AI.

We hire people who care deeply about this problem space. If that is you,

How We Operate

• Be a barrel. Full autonomy. Own things end to end, take on scope without being asked, no permission required to operate outside your core role.

• Insane urgency. We drive everything forward as fast as possible.

• Reason from first principles. Challenge every assumption. Zero analogy thinking, no egos, the best idea wins.

• Love of the game. The frontier of AI is the most interesting problem of our time. We put in long hours at high intensity to push the frontier forward.

• Build something that actually matters. If you're going to spend your time, spend it on something that matters to the world.

The Thermofluids R&D Team

Examples of key problems the team is working on

• Reject 10s of GW of heat, starting now. Fluidstack is targeting 10s of GW of compute over the next two years. Every watt of it becomes heat that has to go somewhere, and no cooling team has ever been asked to open at that scale rather than grow into it.

• Design and build the machines, because nobody can supply them. The merchant compressor market cannot deliver at this rate, and the vendor base behind today’s chillers will not scale to gigawatts. We are taking compressor and chiller design in house, working on machine architectures nobody sells today, and going from blank sheet to production faster than this industry thinks is possible.

• Own every thermofluids problem behind the fleet, not just the chiller. Working fluid and cycle architecture, heat exchangers at a scale that dominates the cost of the plant, two-phase heat transfer at the chip, and thermal energy storage. All of it is open, and whatever this team lands gets built thousands of times.

Role Scope

• Own long-lead procurement for the compressor program: high-speed motors, magnetic bearings, forgings, castings, pressure vessels and test instrumentation.

• Qualify and dual-source the vendors sitting on the critical path, where a single motor or bearing lead time can set the prototype date for the whole program.

• Buy for the prototype and the production ramp at the same time, so the first machine does not quietly lock the fleet into a sole source.

• Run the make-versus-buy calls with engineering, including which parts come off our own floor and which go outside.

• Keep procurement off the critical path of a schedule that runs concept to production far faster than this industry does.

What We're Looking For

The below is a starting point. We always make space for exceptional people, so if you don't fit this role exactly, .

• You’ve bought long-lead engineered hardware where the lead time, not the unit price, was the thing that decided the program.

• You’ve qualified a second source for a part that everyone told you could only come from one place.

• You’ve sat with engineers early enough to change a design for supply reasons, rather than being handed a finished BOM and a date.

• You’ve carried a supplier through a prototype build while the drawings changed underneath them, and kept the relationship intact.

• You’ve told a program its date was wrong and brought the lead-time evidence that settled the argument.

• Bonus: Rotating machinery and precision-machined component sourcing. Aerospace or defense supply base (precision machine shops, forgings, castings, long-lead alloys). Motors, drives and bearings. Pressure equipment and specialist fabrication. Prototype-to-production transitions in hardware startups.

We are committed to pay equity and transparency.

Fluidstack is an Equal Employment Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability and protected veterans’ status, or any other characteristic protected by law. Fluidstack will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records pursuant to applicable law.

You will receive a confirmation email once your application has successfully been accepted. If there is an error with your submission and you did not receive a confirmation email, please email [e-mail] with your resume/CV, the role you've applied for, and the date you submitted your application-- someone from our recruiting team will be in touch.