Data Center Strategic Sourcing - Network
Job Description
About Anthropic
Anthropic’s mission is to create reliable, interpretable, and steerable AI systems. We want AI to be safe and beneficial for our users and for society as a whole. Our team is a quickly growing group of committed researchers, engineers, policy experts, and business leaders working together to build beneficial AI systems.
About the role
We are hiring a Strategic Sourcing Lead to drive development and execution of procurement strategies for the network infrastructure that powers Anthropic's data centers. In this role, you will own end-to-end sourcing for the full network stack — switching and routing platforms, optics and transceivers, structured cabling and fiber, and long-haul connectivity (dark fiber, IP transit, DCI). You will partner closely with network engineering, capacity planning, and third-party vendors to ensure hardware and bandwidth availability, establish strategic vendor relationships, and negotiate commercial agreements. As the sourcing lead for Anthropic's network footprint, you will play a critical role in helping us achieve our ambitious scaling goals.
Responsibilities:
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Drive commercial negotiations and Master Service Agreements with network OEMs (switching/routing platforms, optical equipment, network appliances) and connectivity providers (carriers, dark fiber operators, IP transit and peering partners).
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Audit network OEM and carrier procurement schedules, ensure optimal allocation, and drive cost efficiency of supply in constrained markets (especially high-demand items like 400G/800G optics and high-radix switches).
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Implement frameworks to ensure third-party data center and network partners adhere to commercial terms and technical specifications.
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Develop a global inventory strategy for network gear and optics — including warehousing, third-party logistics, buffer stock, and regional distribution — to accelerate time-to-deployment and improve availability.
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Proactively monitor global network supply chain volatility (silicon shortages, optics lead times, fiber availability) and execute contingency plans to avoid critical project delays.
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Translate network architecture roadmaps into equipment and connectivity forecasts and procurement pipelines.
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Partner with Finance to optimize network inventory strategy and capex planning.
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Establish efficient return and replacement (RMA) workflows with network vendors to restore failed equipment quickly.
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Negotiate warranty and SLA terms and track vendor performance on RMA execution and circuit delivery.
You may be a good fit if you:
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Have 7+ years of experience in supply chain management, sourcing, and procurement.
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Have a track record of developing processes for forecasting, planning, and managing network material and connectivity for data center build-out and/or operations.
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Are familiar with data center networking hardware and connectivity (e.g., switches, routers, optics/transceivers, structured cabling, dark fiber, transit, peering).
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Possess a bachelor's degree in a relevant domain or equivalent practical experience.
It's a bonus if you have:
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10+ years of experience in supply chain management, sourcing, and procurement.
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5+ years of experience sourcing data center network infrastructure.
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Experience working with network OEMs, integrators, optics suppliers, and carriers.
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Experience working on large-scale network build-out programs (greenfield data center networks, DCI expansion, etc.).
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Leadership and influencing skills.
The annual compensation range for this role is listed below.
For sales roles, the range provided is the role’s On Target Earnings ("OTE") range, meaning that the range includes both the sales commissions/sales bonuses target and annual base salary for the role.
Logistics
Minimum education: Bachelor’s degree or an equivalent combination of education, training, and/or experience
Required field of study: A field relevant to the role as demonstrated through coursework, training, or professional experience
Minimum years of experience: Years of experience required will correlate with the internal job level requirements for the position
Location-based hybrid policy: Currently, we expect all staff to be in one of our offices at least 25% of the time. However, some roles may require more time in our offices.
Visa sponsorship: We do sponsor visas! However, we aren't able to successfully sponsor visas for every role and every candidate. But if we make you an offer, we will make every reasonable effort to get you a visa, and we retain an immigration lawyer to help with this.
We encourage you to apply even if you do not believe you meet every single qualification. Not all strong candidates will meet every single qualification as listed. Research shows that people who identify as being from underrepresented groups are more prone to experiencing imposter syndrome and doubting the strength of their candidacy, so we urge you not to exclude yourself prematurely and to submit an application if you're interested in this work. We think AI systems like the ones we're building have enormous social and ethical implications. We think this makes representation even more important, and we strive to include a range of diverse perspectives on our team.
Your safety matters to us. To protect yourself from potential scams, remember that Anthropic recruiters only contact you from @anthropic.com email addresses. In some cases, we may partner with vetted recruiting agencies who will identify themselves as working on behalf of Anthropic. Be cautious of emails from other domains. Legitimate Anthropic recruiters will never ask for money, fees, or banking information before your first day. If you're ever unsure about a communication, don't click any links—visit anthropic.com/careers directly for confirmed position openings.
How we're different
We believe that the highest-impact AI research will be big science. At Anthropic we work as a single cohesive team on just a few large-scale research efforts. And we value impact — advancing our long-term goals of steerable, trustworthy AI — rather than work on smaller and more specific puzzles. We view AI research as an empirical science, which has as much in common with physics and biology as with traditional efforts in computer science. We're an extremely collaborative group, and we host frequent research discussions to ensure that we are pursuing the highest-impact work at any given time. As such, we greatly value communication skills.
The easiest way to understand our research directions is to read our recent research. This research continues many of the directions our team worked on prior to Anthropic, including: GPT-3, Circuit-Based Interpretability, Multimodal Neurons, Scaling Laws, AI & Compute, Concrete Problems in AI Safety, and Learning from Human Preferences.
Come work with us!
Anthropic is a public benefit corporation headquartered in San Francisco. We offer competitive compensation and benefits, optional equity donation matching, generous vacation and parental leave, flexible working hours, and a lovely office space in which to collaborate with colleagues. Guidance on Candidates' AI Usage: Learn about our policy for using AI in our application process