Strategic Sourcing Manager

About the Team

OpenAI, in close collaboration with our capital partners, is building the world’s most advanced AI compute infrastructure ecosystem. The InfraDev team is central to this mission, setting the strategy and executing the roadmap to scale our supercomputing footprint globally. From site planning to system integration, this team operates at the intersection of commercial, technical, and operational excellence, partnering with leaders across OpenAI and the industry.

About the Role

We are seeking a Strategic Sourcing Manager who is ready to take on global-scale challenges in AI compute supply and manufacturing — an opportunity to shape the future of supercomputing.

As part of the Infrastructure Strategy & Delivery organization supporting Industrial Compute, OpenAI’s next-generation supercomputing platform, you will lead sourcing and strategic supplier engagements for compute infrastructure at hyperscale. This role will drive commercial strategy and supplier accountability across server platforms, accelerators, rack systems, and associated thermal & power delivery components.

This is not traditional procurement — it is foundational work enabling OpenAI to deploy compute faster and more efficiently than anyone in the world, while building deeply-integrated partnerships with the global compute supply chain.

Key Responsibilities

• Develop and execute sourcing strategies for the next generation of AI compute infrastructure in partnership with engineering and program leadership.

• Stay at the leading edge of industry and supply-chain trends to inform category strategy and long-range planning.

• Initiate, negotiate, and manage commercial agreements across OEM/ODM/JDMs for accelerators, GPUs/CPUs, server platforms, rack systems, liquid-cooling components, PSUs, and supporting mechanical/electrical subsystems.

• Secure capacity and optionality across a rapidly scaling compute supply chain while mitigating risk and ensuring manufacturing readiness.

• Partner cross-functionally with engineering, program delivery, legal, operations, and finance to ensure sourcing strategies align with technical and program objectives.

• Drive competitive sourcing events, commercial structuring, and vendor accountability across the compute bill of materials.

• Provide technical and commercial evaluation guidance during supplier selection and product qualification cycles.

• Deliver portfolio-level visibility to executive stakeholders on progress, risks, and decision points with clarity and precision.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of strategic sourcing and vendor management experience, with deep expertise in compute systems and hardware supply chains.

• Demonstrated leadership sourcing for high-performance compute, accelerators, and data-center server platforms — ideally including OEM/JDM/ODM engagement.

• Technical fluency in compute architecture, including GPUs, CPUs, server platforms, rack systems, cold-plate & liquid-cooling design, and associated power delivery subsystems.

• Proven success negotiating complex capital procurement agreements and supplier capacity programs at hyperscale.

• Ability to influence cross-functional technical and executive teams and drive alignment in fast-moving, high-stakes environments.

• Strong analytical decision-making and commercial structuring skills, balancing speed, cost, technical requirements, and strategic risk.

• Experience with global manufacturing, supply chain readiness, long-lead materials, and ramp-to-volume for high-complexity hardware.

• Familiarity with hyperscale data-center operational requirements, testing/qualification cycles, and integration workflows.

• Procurement, supply chain, program management, or data-center hardware certifications are advantageous.

About OpenAI

OpenAI is an AI research and deployment company dedicated to ensuring that general-purpose artificial intelligence benefits all of humanity. We push the boundaries of the capabilities of AI systems and seek to safely deploy them to the world through our products. AI is an extremely powerful tool that must be created with safety and human needs at its core, and to achieve our mission, we must encompass and value the many different perspectives, voices, and experiences that form the full spectrum of humanity. 

We are an equal opportunity employer, and we do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, age, veteran status, disability, genetic information, or other applicable legally protected characteristic.

For additional information, please see OpenAI’s Affirmative Action and Equal Employment Opportunity Policy Statement.

Background checks for applicants will be administered in accordance with applicable law, and qualified applicants with arrest or conviction records will be considered for employment consistent with those laws, including the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance for Employers, and the California Fair Chance Act, for US-based candidates. For unincorporated Los Angeles County workers: we reasonably believe that criminal history may have a direct, adverse and negative relationship with the following job duties, potentially resulting in the withdrawal of a conditional offer of employment: protect computer hardware entrusted to you from theft, loss or damage; return all computer hardware in your possession (including the data contained therein) upon termination of employment or end of assignment; and maintain the confidentiality of proprietary, confidential, and non-public information. In addition, job duties require access to secure and protected information technology systems and related data security obligations.

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