Data Center Business Operations & Supplier Management Manager
Lambda
Job Summary
As the Manager of Supplier Management (Data Center) at Lambda, you will lead the Supplier Account Management (SAM) team, overseeing supplier performance, contracts, and strategic relationships across Lambda’s Data Center portfolio. You will partner with various internal stakeholders to ensure supplier alignment with operational objectives, escalate issues, and drive continuous improvement, ultimately ensuring Lambda gets maximum value, accountability, and innovation from its supplier ecosystem.
Must Have
- Lead, mentor, and develop the SAM team.
- Own strategic supplier relationships and contract strategy.
- Read, interpret, and draft business terminology for contracts.
- Oversee supplier performance tracking using SLAs, QBRs, scorecards, and operational metrics.
- Act as escalation point for supplier disputes, service-level issues, or operational challenges.
- Collaborate with AP, Finance, Legal, and internal stakeholders.
- Identify opportunities for supplier consolidation, innovation, and cost efficiency.
- Build and maintain documentation, dashboards, and reporting.
- Partner with cross-functional teams to influence supplier strategy.
- Proven experience managing supplier management teams, vendor relationships, or in Data Center operations.
- Strong leadership skills.
- Deep understanding of contracts.
- Strategic thinker with operational rigor.
- Excellent problem-solving, negotiation, and escalation management skills.
- Collaborative, humble, proactive, and comfortable operating in a fast-paced, high-growth, startup-like environment.
Good to Have
- Bachelor’s degree in Business, Operations, Engineering, or related field.
Perks & Benefits
- Generous cash & equity compensation
- Health, dental, and vision coverage for you and your dependents
- Wellness and commuter stipends for select roles
- 401k Plan with 2% company match (USA employees)
- Flexible paid time off plan that we all actually use
Job Description
Location
Remote, USA, San Francisco Office, Bellevue, WA
Employment Type
Full time
Location Type
Remote
Department
Operations
Compensation
- San Francisco$236K – $355K
- Remote$201K – $302K
- BellevueBellevue $212K – $320K
Lambda, The Superintelligence Cloud, is a leader in AI cloud infrastructure serving tens of thousands of customers. Our customers range from AI researchers to enterprises and hyperscalers. Lambda's mission is to make compute as ubiquitous as electricity and give everyone the power of superintelligence. One person, one GPU.
If you'd like to build the world's best AI cloud, join us.
About Lambda
At Lambda, we’re building the world’s best AI infrastructure platform. Our Data Center suppliers are critical partners in delivering world-class AI infrastructure, and strong supplier relationships drive reliability, cost-effectiveness, and scalability. This role leads the Data Center Supplier Management function, ensuring Lambda gets maximum value, accountability, and innovation from its supplier ecosystem.
What You’ll Do
As the Manager of Supplier Management (Data Center), you will lead the Supplier Account Management (SAM) team, overseeing supplier performance, contracts, and strategic relationships across Lambda’s Data Center portfolio. You will partner with AP, Finance, Legal, and internal stakeholders to ensure supplier alignment with operational objectives, escalate issues as needed, and drive continuous improvement.
You will:
- Lead, mentor, and develop the SAM team, setting clear expectations, providing guidance, and driving a high-performing, collaborative culture.
- Own strategic supplier relationships and contract strategy, ensuring performance, compliance, and alignment with Lambda’s business objectives.
- Read, interpret, and draft business terminology for contracts as needed, partnering closely with Legal to ensure agreements protect Lambda’s interests and support operational objectives.
- Oversee supplier performance tracking using SLAs, QBRs, scorecards, and operational metrics, guiding the SAMs in proactive issue management.
- Act as escalation point for supplier disputes, service-level issues, or operational challenges that the SAMs cannot resolve.
- Collaborate with AP, Finance, Legal, and internal stakeholders to ensure supplier activities align with operational and portfolio objectives.
- Identify opportunities for supplier consolidation, innovation, and cost efficiency, and drive implementation through the SAMs.
- Build and maintain documentation, dashboards, and reporting to provide leadership with clear visibility into supplier performance, risks, and trends.
- Partner with cross-functional teams to influence supplier strategy, support operational readiness, and enable scalable growth.
About You
- Proven experience managing supplier management teams, vendor relationships, or in Data Center operations.
- Strong leadership skills with the ability to mentor, motivate, and grow a team of SAMs.
- Deep understanding of contracts, including reading, interpreting, and working with Legal to draft or negotiate agreements.
- Strategic thinker with operational rigor, able to align suppliers with business objectives and long-term growth.
- Excellent problem-solving, negotiation, and escalation management skills.
- Collaborative, humble, proactive, and comfortable operating in a fast-paced, high-growth, startup-like environment.
Nice to Have
- Bachelor’s degree in Business, Operations, Engineering, or related field.
Salary Range Information
The annual salary range for this position has been set based on market data and other factors. However, a salary higher or lower than this range may be appropriate for a candidate whose qualifications differ meaningfully from those listed in the job description.
About Lambda
- Founded in 2012, with 500+ employees, and growing fast
- Our investors notably include TWG Global, US Innovative Technology Fund (USIT), Andra Capital, SGW, Andrej Karpathy, ARK Invest, Fincadia Advisors, G Squared, In-Q-Tel (IQT), KHK & Partners, NVIDIA, Pegatron, Supermicro, Wistron, Wiwynn, Gradient Ventures, Mercato Partners, SVB, 1517, and Crescent Cove
- We have research papers accepted at top machine learning and graphics conferences, including NeurIPS, ICCV, SIGGRAPH, and TOG
- Our values are publicly available: https://lambda.ai/careers
- We offer generous cash & equity compensation
- Health, dental, and vision coverage for you and your dependents
- Wellness and commuter stipends for select roles
- 401k Plan with 2% company match (USA employees)
- Flexible paid time off plan that we all actually use
A Final Note:
You do not need to match all of the listed expectations to apply for this position. We are committed to building a team with a variety of backgrounds, experiences, and skills.
Equal Opportunity Employer
Lambda is an Equal Opportunity employer. Applicants are considered without regard to race, color, religion, creed, national origin, age, sex, gender, marital status, sexual orientation and identity, genetic information, veteran status, citizenship, or any other factors prohibited by local, state, or federal law.
Compensation Range: $201K - $355K
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