Strategic Sourcing Manager, Data Center Infrastructure: Mechanical

About the role

OpenAI's Industrial Compute group is standing up hyperscale AI campuses with cloud providers, engineering firms, construction partners, utilities, and equipment makers. Strategic Sourcing sits inside that machine: it secures reliable access to equipment, materials, and partners so programs can run at the scale frontier models need. This manager role owns commercial strategy for the mechanical and related infrastructure systems that keep those campuses online. You negotiate supplier agreements, hold executive vendor relationships, and keep Infrastructure Delivery, Capacity Planning, Engineering, Finance, Construction, Legal, and external suppliers pointed at the same capacity and schedule reality. As OpenAI expands globally, sourcing quality becomes part of how cost, resilience, and aggressive deployment timelines stay achievable. You will translate technical requirements into commercial strategy while balancing risk, cost, and schedule across a fragmented supplier landscape. The role demands comfort with ambiguity, rapid iteration, and cross-functional influence in a fast-moving environment where decisions directly affect model training and inference capacity. You will serve as the primary commercial interface for critical mechanical systems, ensuring alignment between engineering ambition and supplier execution.

Key facts

What you'll do

• Write multi-year sourcing strategies for data center infrastructure systems that feed Industrial Compute campuses.
• Run supplier selection, RFx cycles, commercial negotiations, and contract close for major infrastructure programs.
• Hold executive relationships with manufacturers, EPC firms, integrators, and other infrastructure vendors that matter to delivery.
• Sit with Infrastructure Delivery and Engineering so sourcing plans match project schedules, technical specs, and deployment priorities.
• Work Capacity Planning so supplier capacity and reservations track long-term infrastructure roadmaps.
• Judge suppliers on manufacturing capacity, execution quality, financial health, delivery performance, and operational maturity.
• Cut supply risk with diversification, long-term agreements, alternate sources, and capacity reservations.
• Watch global markets, manufacturing trends, commodity moves, geopolitical risk, and supplier ecosystems that can slow infrastructure delivery.
• Build supplier scorecards covering quality, cost, schedule, responsiveness, safety, and execution.
• Arm executives with financial analysis, market intelligence, scenario plans, and supplier benchmarks before sourcing decisions.
• Structure scalable commercial agreements with Legal and Finance so contracts support Industrial Compute's longer infrastructure plan.
• Identify and qualify new suppliers for mechanical systems while maintaining rigorous commercial and risk standards.
• Lead negotiations that balance upfront pricing with long-term value, service levels, and flexibility.
• Collaborate with Finance to model total cost of ownership, including logistics, duties, warranties, and support costs.
• Partner with Legal to draft and finalize agreements that mitigate risk and clarify obligations across complex supply chains.

Requirements

• A bachelor's credential covering supply chain, engineering, construction management, business, operations, finance, or adjacent study.
• 8+ years doing strategic sourcing, procurement, supplier management, or infrastructure supply-chain work.
• History buying major infrastructure systems, industrial equipment, mission-critical facilities, or large capital programs.
• Evidence you have closed complex commercial deals with strategic suppliers.
• Working command of supplier qualification, contract strategy, performance management, and sourcing governance.
• Comfort partnering with engineering, construction, finance, legal, and operations stakeholders.
• Analytical depth, financial modeling skill, negotiation craft, and clear executive communication.
• Demonstrated ability to operate in a matrixed organization while driving decisions without direct authority.

Nice to have

• Sourcing experience with prefabricated electrical skids and e-houses.
• Modular data center infrastructure sourcing.
• Modular cooling plants and components such as heat exchangers, pumps, chillers, and VFDs.
• Hands-on familiarity with air- and water-cooled chillers, dry or adiabatic coolers, CRAH, CRAC, and air handling units.
• Structural steel, enclosure systems, and related fabrication processes.
• Steel and stainless steel piping plus valves, control valves, and flanges.
• Support for 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.
• Work with EPC, design-build, or integrated project delivery partners.

Skills & tools

strategic sourcing - RFx - commercial negotiation - supplier scorecards - financial modeling - capacity planning - EPC and design-build partnering

Practical notes

Ideal background in the posting includes hyperscale data centers, mission-critical sites, industrial construction, semiconductor plants, energy infrastructure, or similarly complex capital programs. Title focus is mechanical data-center infrastructure within Industrial Compute's Strategic Sourcing function. Background checks follow applicable law, including Fair Chance ordinances for US-based candidates where relevant.