Procurement & Vendor Management Manager

Procurement & Vendor Management Manager

Location: Onsite – Pleasanton, California
Reporting to: Chief of Staff

At STN, we don't just adapt to the digital future, we engineer it. Our mission is to help organizations thrive in a rapidly evolving technology landscape through strategic insight, cutting-edge solutions, and a security-first mindset. We provide end-to-end services spanning cloud consulting, AI infrastructure, and enterprise security, enabling secure, scalable, and future-ready transformation.

As trusted advisors, we align IT investments with business outcomes that drive performance and growth, starting with deep strategic engagement and delivering tailored solutions built for long-term impact.

Our approach is innovation-led and rooted in cybersecurity, with a focus on leveraging the right technologies to solve real-world challenges. We invest in our people and foster a culture of growth, inclusion, and purpose because we believe empowered teams build transformative technology.

Overview
Scope of spend owned:

• Cost of goods for technology resale, including OEM hardware, software licensing, and third-party support contracts purchased on behalf of customers
• Internal services and corporate spend, including SaaS, professional services, contract labor, insurance-adjacent vendors, and facilities
• Capital and construction spend for data center site buildouts, including long-lead equipment, trade contractors, and logistics
• Compute and infrastructure supply agreements supporting the GPU-as-a-Service business

Partners closely with: Finance and Accounting, Legal and Contracts, Technical Operations, Infrastructure, Security, and the Sales organization.
 

Key Responsibilities

Responsibilities – Procurement for Resale

• Source and price hardware, software, and third-party support across OEMs, distributors, and VARs, keeping cost and availability data current so Sales can quote without one-off pricing requests
• Secure deal registration, special pricing, and partner program benefits (certifications, rebates, renewals), and confirm registered pricing is applied at PO and invoice
• Protect quoted margin through fulfillment by catching price, freight, currency, and substitution changes, and pursue alternate supply paths that improve margin or delivery
• Own the resale PO lifecycle from issuance through receipt and reconciliation, flagging lead-time, allocation, and backorder risk to Sales and Operations early
• Handle RMAs, warranty registration, and post-sale supply issues with Sales and Technical Operations
• Partner with Legal and Contracts on import and export compliance, including export controls on GPUs and other advanced computing items, country-of-origin and customs classification, and tariff exposure in quoted pricing

Responsibilities - Internal Procurement for Services & Corporate Spend

• Own intake-to-purchase for internal requests and run competitive sourcing (RFI, RFP, RFQ, bid evaluation, award recommendations) for material purchases
• Develop category strategies for major spend areas, using market benchmarks and should-cost analysis to test vendor pricing
• Negotiate SaaS, professional services, contract labor, and recurring service agreements, and maintain a renewal calendar that drives negotiations well before auto-renewal
• Right-size recurring spend through license true-downs, tier changes, and tool consolidation, and bring shadow IT and off-contract spend into the approved process
• Provide the commercial position to Legal on MSAs, SOWs, order forms, data processing terms, and security addenda, and partner with Finance on budget, accruals, capex versus opex treatment, and forecasting
• Write and maintain the procurement policy (approval thresholds, delegation of authority, bidding requirements, exceptions) and enforce three-way match with Accounts Payable
• Set savings targets with Finance, track realized savings against budget, and report results to the Chief of Staff on a regular cadence

Responsibilities – Internal Procurement for Site Buildouts
Data center buildouts are schedule-driven and capital-intensive. Missed lead times directly affect delivery dates, so procurement timing is critical to project success.

• Own each site's procurement schedule, working back from energization and delivery dates to set order-by dates for every long-lead item
• Source infrastructure equipment (compute and GPU platforms, networking, storage, racks, power, cooling, cabling) and award electrical, mechanical, and fit-out trade bids with Infrastructure and site leadership, and negotiate the compute and infrastructure supply agreements that support the GPU-as-a-Service business
• Track lead times and allocation continuously, maintain multi-source coverage on critical-path items, and escalate slippage while an alternate is still viable
• Manage freight, customs, staging, and site delivery, and administer construction and equipment contracts, including change orders, progress billing, retainage, lien waivers, and closeout
• Reconcile committed spend against each site's capital budget, and standardize specifications, warranties, and spares with Technical Operations so repeat sites reuse a known bill of materials

Responsibilities – Vendor Relationship Management

• Own the vendor master (approved vendors, scope, governing agreement, term) and run onboarding diligence covering financials, insurance, security and privacy posture, references, and payment setup
• Coordinate Security review for vendors touching customer data or production systems, re-run diligence on a set cadence, and offboard cleanly with access revocation and data return or destruction
• Own commercial terms (pricing, commitments, payment terms, SLAs and credits, liability, termination and renewal), negotiating from a consistent preferred-terms baseline rather than each vendor's paper
• Track obligations on both sides (minimums, true-ups, notice periods, escalators) and manage renewals early enough to evaluate alternative vendors
• Run supplier performance management for strategic vendors, with scorecards on delivery, quality, and cost, regular business reviews, and corrective action plans when a vendor misses commitments

Experience & Qualifications

Required

• 5–10 years of progressive experience in procurement, strategic sourcing, or vendor management, including direct ownership of supplier negotiations on multi-million-dollar contracts
• Demonstrated experience negotiating and administering commercial agreements, with a working command of the terms that matter: pricing and escalators, SLAs and credits, payment and delivery terms, liability, termination, and renewal mechanics
• Experience across multiple spend categories, such as software and services, construction, and infrastructure equipment
• Track record of building or materially improving a procurement process, not only operating one that already existed
• Strong analytical skills, including spend analysis, bid leveling, total cost of ownership modeling, and comfort working in spreadsheets at a detailed level
• Proven ability to manage vendor escalations under pressure and hold suppliers to commitments without damaging the relationship
• Experience working cross-functionally with Finance, Legal, and technical stakeholders, and translating between commercial and technical requirements
• Excellent written communication. This role produces policy, bid documents, award recommendations, and executive-facing summaries
• Bachelor's degree, or equivalent practical experience
• Willingness to travel to data center sites as buildout activity requires

Preferred

• Procurement experience inside a VAR, MSP, systems integrator, or other reseller environment, with familiarity in deal registration, distribution relationships, and margin management on pass-through spend
• Direct experience buying data center or IT infrastructure: compute (including GPU and AI accelerator platforms), networking, power, and cooling, including long-lead and allocation-constrained equipment
• Experience supporting a construction or capital buildout program, including trade contractor bids, change orders, and progress billing
• Familiarity with major OEM partner programs (certifications, rebates, special pricing)
• Experience at a private equity–backed or high-growth company where reporting discipline and audit readiness matter
• Working knowledge of third-party risk management frameworks and security review processes (SOC 2, ISO 27001, vendor security questionnaires)
• Hands-on experience with procurement, contract lifecycle, or spend management platforms (such as Coupa or SAP Ariba), and with ERP purchasing modules
• CPSM, CPSD, CIPS, or comparable certification

Compensation

• Full-Time, Exempt
• $100,000-$150,000/year, DOE

Benefits

• Health Coverage – Medical, Dental & Vision
• FSA Health and Dependent Care available
• 401(k) Plan
• Unlimited Paid Time Off (PTO)
• Observed Holidays Paid