Senior Category Manager, Sensors/Mission Systems

Anduril Industries is a defense technology company with a mission to transform U.S. and allied military capabilities with advanced technology. By bringing the expertise, technology, and business model of the 21st century’s most innovative companies to the defense industry, Anduril is changing how military systems are designed, built and sold. Anduril’s family of systems is powered by Lattice OS, an AI-powered operating system that turns thousands of data streams into a realtime, 3D command and control center. As the world enters an era of strategic competition, Anduril is committed to bringing cutting-edge autonomy, AI, computer vision, sensor fusion, and networking technology to the military in months, not years. ABOUT THE JOB The Senior Category Manager, Sensors/Mission Systems (internally known at Anduril as a Senior Global Sourcing Manager), is the domain expert for the sensor/mission systems commodities for Anduril Industries. This is a proactive, high-impact role in securing critical components, materials, and services that power our products. This role will be responsible for developing new supplier and new sourcing partnerships that can be incorporated into new products, as well as existing products to improve their technologies, cost, and quality. There is broad internal cross functional partnership to evaluate supplier opportunities, while ensuring commercial agreements, intellectual property, and statement of works are accurate and well established prior to pipelining. WHAT YOU'LL DO Develop and execute commodity strategies for sensors/mission systems focusing on cost reduction, quality improvement, and supply chain resilience End-to-end responsibility for delivering quality parts, when needed, at the right cost Act as the sourcing expert for sensors/mission systems manufacturing Lead RFI/RFQ/RFP and strategic sourcing process for sensors/mission systems Own the business relationship with external Contract Manufacturing and responsible for continuity of supply, risk management, cost negotiations, and NPI to MP operation execution Partner with the Engineering team and Contract Manufacturers to influence technical design specs and customize product and manufacturing requirements Perform detailed analysis of quote submissions based on cost breakdown from data. Deep dive into every element of the supply chain and make data-driven decisions based on TCO Work closely with cross-functional teams to support prototype requirements, execute against build milestones, and lead sourcing activities Influence CM’s manufacturing processes and CapEx and technology decisions Negotiate key agreements with suppliers to establish best-in-class pricing, quality, flexibility, delivery, payment, warranty, and service terms Collaborate internally, negotiate the right tradeoffs, solicit cooperation and resolve problems, and advance new supplier or product offerings Provide strong technical direction within the specific commodities, by evaluating and guiding product strategy throughout the product lifecycle Manage and lead the operations effort of developing new and adaptations of existing technologies for Anduril Develop & execute commercial agreements to properly reflect the expectations of project, which include fixed and variable costs, lead-times, schedules, manufacturing capacities, etc Conduct regular technology reviews to Executive staff and management Own the supplier performance management of their respective commodities, which includes key delivery, quality, cost, and innovation metrics Act as the primary escalation for their respective commodity REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS: Bachelor’s degree in supply chain, engineering, or related technical field 5+ years of experience in supply chain commodity management of sensors/mission systems manufacturing, and/or sourcing engineering Ability to travel up to 50% of the time Ability to relocate, if not already local to be onsite in Costa Mesa, CA PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS Bachelor's degree in phy