Senior Sourcing Specialist

Responsibilities

• Plan your sourcing. You take the bill of materials and build a sourcing plan for each commodity. You weigh criticality, lead time and single or dual source options.
• Find the right suppliers. You run market scans, requests for information and requests for quote. Then you shortlist the suppliers worth a closer look.
• Judge capability together. You work with R&D, Production, Finance and Compliance to build one clear view of what each supplier can do.
• Negotiate the deal. You agree pricing, volume tiers, tooling and payment terms. You also set up the NDAs, supply agreements and long-term agreements that back them.
• Set suppliers up properly. You onboard new suppliers and keep vendor data, price breaks and lead times current in our ERP system.
• Lead supplier qualification. You coordinate our tiered qualification process, including quality agreements and first-article inspections.
• Audit on site and remotely. You check suppliers for quality management, traceability and compliance. You also screen them against trade compliance requirements.
• Keep builds moving. You place and expedite orders for prototype, validation, pilot and pre-series builds. You track supplier performance on delivery, price and quality.
• Bring costs down. You work with suppliers on cost reduction, using should-cost and landed-cost models.
• Grow our supplier base. You qualify suppliers for additional production sites and regions, reusing existing qualification records.
• Make it repeatable. You document sourcing processes, templates and playbooks, so the purchasing team can take over mature suppliers.

Requirements

• You have 6+ years in sourcing, purchasing or new product introduction for hardware products, across a variety of product types, complexities and technologies.
• You can read technical drawings and specifications, and you work closely with engineers.
• You’re willing to travel regularly, including international trips of several days.
• You’ve audited suppliers hands-on or worked within a quality management system such as ISO 9001.
• You have working knowledge of trade compliance rules.
• You’ve used an ERP system for purchasing and vendor data.
• You have a qualification in engineering, supply chain, business or a related field.
• You communicate excellently in English and build good working relationships with colleagues and suppliers.

Plus

• Experience in aerospace, drones or other safety-critical products
• Experience sourcing custom electromechanical parts such as plastic parts, motors, batteries and avionics
• Experience qualifying suppliers for production in more than one region
• Experience with supplier scorecards and performance reporting