Applications are submitted online until the position is filled and/or the posting is closed. After reviewing this job announcement, please click on the link at the bottom of the page to apply online.
A resume is required with the application. Further instructions on submission of documents are available in the online application.
A resume may not be substituted for an application.Minimum Requirements:
- Bachelor's degree from an accredited institution.
- Five (5) years of government or private-sector procurement, acquisitions, or contract management experience.
- An equivalent combination of education and training may be substituted.
Position Summary:
Reporting to the Deputy Director of Strategy and Operations, the Procurement Strategist for Digital Services and Technology will play a key role in designing procurement approaches that support modern, human-centered digital products across County agencies, including Parks, Public Defenders, Allegheny County Health Department (ACHD), and many others. This role partners with program leaders, Business Relationship Managers, Business Analysts, Technical Staff, Product Designers, and County procurement and contract teams. This position will help craft procurement pathways for new technology initiatives, improve contract structures, reduce vendor risk, and ensure that projects are aligned with County goals for service delivery, usability, sustainability, and equity. The Procurement Strategist will also be responsible for managing this work as projects, owning schedules, dependencies, risks, and stakeholder communication from intake through award and into delivery.
Overview:
Allegheny County's Department of Information Technology (DIT) is strengthening its digital service delivery and rethinking how the County buys and manages technology. Much of County technology procurement was built for an era of large, monolithic contracts, and the department needs someone who can advance modern procurement approaches, validate them through implementation, and support their long-term adoption.
Duties:
Strategic Procurement and Sourcing:- Leads full lifecycle procurement activities: research, planning, solicitation drafting, vendor negotiations, and contracting. Run each as a managed project with a schedule, dependencies, milestones, and named owners.
- Conducts market research and evaluate technology approaches including build, buy, reuse, open-source, and cooperative purchasing.
- Promotes modular procurement approaches that reduce risk, limit vendor lock-in, and support multi-vendor ecosystems.
- Serves as DIT's primary partner to County procurement and legal leadership on technology acquisition, modernizing the policies, contract terms, and approval pathways that govern how the County buys digital services.
Vendor and Contract Management:- Oversees contract execution, monitor vendor performance against defined outcomes, and lead remediation when performance falls short.
- Negotiates statements of work and advise on long-term contract strategies, including transition, exit, and data portability terms.
- Works closely with product teams to ensure vendors deliver on objectives, running the operating cadence: kickoffs, status reporting, risk and issue tracking, change control, and escalation.
- Incorporates lessons learned into future procurement strategies and into reusable templates.
Operational Leadership:- Coaches' teams to shift toward outcome-based scopes of work and modern delivery principles (agile, iterative, human-centered).
- Develops evaluation criteria and pricing structures for phased iterative delivery rather than fixed-scope, fixed-price waterfall.
- Creates procurement playbooks, templates, and tools that work within County policy and regulatory environments and drive their adoption so they become the default rather than the exception.
- Brings in external benchmarks from peer counties, states, and government digital service organizations, and apply what works to County practice.
Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities
Knowledge of:
- Modern Technology
- Procurement processes and procedures
Skill in:
- Microsoft Office Suite
- Cloud, SaaS models, API, Integration, Agile Delivery.
Ability to:
- Demonstrate experience in changing procurement process, template, or practice (not only operating within one) and the ability to describe what changed and what resulted.
- Guide cross-functional teams without direct authority over them.
- Translate policy or regulatory requirements into operational specifications.
- Demonstrate strong communication and relationship-building skills.
- Advocate for change to skeptical audiences.
Residency: Allegheny County within 1 year.
Veterans' Preference: Will be awarded to eligible candidates.
