About This Role:The Category Manager, Electrical owns the electrical spend category-including switchgear, PDC components, cable/wire, and specialized electrical hardware-end-to-end at the strategic layer. In this role, you will lead market intelligence, supplier qualification, commercial negotiations, and proactive risk management across Crusoe's key site locations. This category skews toward Strategic and Bottleneck profiles, making your technical credibility (such as NEC/UL compliance, switchgear specifications, and electrical tolerances) central to driving success alongside your negotiation skills.
Unlike tactical procurement, this role is accountable for the why behind our supply chain strategy-setting up the frameworks, agreements, and Approved Vendor Lists (AVL) rather than processing daily purchase orders. The ideal candidate brings a deep understanding of industrial electrical equipment, excels at drafting defensible category strategies, and proactively mitigates single-source and lead-time risks before they impact build schedules. This is a
Full-Time position supporting our Arvada, Brighton, Tulsa, and Ponchatoula sites.
What You'll Be Working On:- Market & Spend Intelligence: Maintain deep intelligence across electrical categories, tracking supply base capabilities, pricing benchmarks, actual lead times, and capacity constraints with a heavy focus on long-lead items like switchgear.
- AVL Qualification & Management: Own the electrical Approved Vendor List (AVL), conducting rigorous vetting and maintaining a defensible, scored qualification rationale for every entry, including NEC/UL compliance verification.
- Category Strategy & Segmentation: Apply framework models (e.g., Kraljic Matrix) to classify electrical categories, balancing technical capability, quality, and lead-time reliability to build a 12-24 month category roadmap with dual-sourcing options.
- Commercial Negotiations & Contracting: Structure and negotiate MSAs, pricing, terms, and SLAs while redlining buyer-adverse clauses (e.g., delivery commitments, force majeure, liability caps) to protect schedule integrity.
- Proactive Risk Mitigation: Manage single-source exposures and lead-time risks on specialized electrical components, maintaining a live category risk register with clear mitigation paths.
- Supplier Performance Tracking: Establish and maintain quarterly supplier scorecards evaluating on-time delivery, quality, responsiveness, and cost trends.
- Cross-Functional Alignment: Create clean, robust commercial frameworks that allow operational teams (such as Material Planners and PO Specialists) to execute seamlessly against established terms.
What You'll Bring to the Team:- Experience: 4-7+ years of dedicated experience in strategic sourcing or category management specifically focused on electrical components, switchgear, or industrial electrical equipment.
- Education: Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering, Supply Chain, Business, or a related field (or equivalent practical experience).
- Technical Compliance Knowledge: Working familiarity with NEC/UL compliance requirements and electrical component specifications sufficient to evaluate supplier technical claims.
- Contracting & Negotiation Skills: Demonstrated hands-on experience reading, structuring, and redlining complex commercial terms and contracts.
- Strategic Sourcing Frameworks: Proficiency with supplier qualification frameworks, RFI/RFQ processes, scorecarding, and category segmentation methodologies.
Bonus Points:- Hands-on ERP experience with platforms like Acumatica or similar enterprise systems.
- Experience in high-power compute, data center infrastructure, or energy/industrial equipment environments.
- Proven track record of building dual-sourcing strategies for long-lead industrial hardware.
Benefits:- Competitive compensation and equity packages
- Restricted Stock Units
- Paid time off, paid holidays & leave of absence programs
- Comprehensive health, dental & vision insurance
- Employer contributions to HSA account
- Paid parental leave
- Paid life insurance, short-term and long-term disability
- Professional development & tuition reimbursement
- Mental health & wellness support
- Commuter benefits (parking & transit)
- Cell phone stipend
- 401(k) Retirement plan with company match up to 4% of salary
- Volunteer time off
- Global travel insurance & emergency assistance
- Daily meals allowance
- Additional perks & programs specific to location
Compensation:Compensation will be paid in the range of $120,000 - $145,000. Restricted Stock Units are included in all offers. Compensation to be determined by the applicant's education, experience, knowledge, skills, and abilities, as well as internal equity and alignment with market data.
