Strategic Sourcing Manager, Compute Infrastructure

OpenAI

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Research Services 👥 201 employees 📍 San Francisco, CA, US Est. 2015

OpenAI is an AI research and deployment company dedicated to ensuring that general-purpose artificial intelligence benefits all of humanity. AI is an extremely powerful tool that must be created with…

Job Overview

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 platform.