Strategic Sourcing Manager, Data Center Infrastructure, Electrical & Mechanical

The role

You will lead sourcing strategy for electrical and mechanical infrastructure systems across Industrial Compute campuses. You will develop supplier and commercial strategies, negotiate agreements, and align supplier capacity with technical requirements and deployment plans.

What you will do

• Develop sourcing strategies for critical electrical and mechanical infrastructure systems.
• Lead supplier selection, RFx processes, negotiations, and contract execution.
• Build strategic relationships with manufacturers, EPC firms, integrators, and infrastructure suppliers.
• Partner with Engineering and Infrastructure Delivery to align commercial decisions with technical requirements.
• Coordinate with Capacity Planning on long-term supplier capacity and infrastructure roadmaps.
• Evaluate suppliers' manufacturing capacity, quality, financial health, and delivery performance.
• Identify and mitigate supply risks through diversification and long-term agreements.
• Monitor market conditions, manufacturing trends, and commodity impacts.
• Establish supplier scorecards and performance measures.
• Develop market analyses, supplier benchmarks, and financial models.

Required qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Supply Chain, Engineering, Construction Management, Business, Finance, Operations, or a related field.
• 8+ years of experience in strategic sourcing, procurement, supplier management, or infrastructure supply chain.
• Experience sourcing major infrastructure systems, industrial equipment, or equipment for large capital projects.
• Demonstrated success negotiating complex commercial agreements with strategic suppliers.
• Strong understanding of supplier qualification, contract strategy, performance management, and sourcing governance.
• Experience partnering with engineering, construction, finance, legal, and operations teams.
• Strong analytical, financial modeling, negotiation, and executive communication skills.
• Deep sourcing experience in electrical or mechanical infrastructure, plus the ability to work across the other discipline.

Nice to have

• Experience sourcing electrical categories like substation equipment, distribution, switchgear, busway, UPS, or electrical skids.
• Experience sourcing mechanical categories like modular cooling plants, chillers, heat exchangers, pumps, VFDs, or air-handling equipment.
• Modular data center infrastructure or fabricated enclosure systems.
• Hyperscale cloud, AI infrastructure, semiconductor, energy, or advanced manufacturing programs.
• Long-lead equipment planning and supplier capacity management.
• Global supplier networks across North America, Europe, and Asia.
• EPC, design-build, or integrated project delivery environments.

About the company

OpenAI is an AI research and deployment company dedicated to ensuring that general-purpose artificial intelligence benefits all of humanity. Its Industrial Compute organization builds the infrastructure needed to support the next generation of AI.