Supply Chain Manager, R&D

Fluidstack

$120K — $145K *
Aerospace & Defense
Less than 5 years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • 5-7 years in procurement for long-lead engineered hardware
  • Proven experience in qualifying alternative suppliers
  • Background in collaborative engineering and design modification
  • Track record in managing supplier relationships during prototype builds
  • Ability to provide lead-time insights that influence project timelines
  • Bonus: Experience with rotating machinery and precision components from aerospace or defense sectors

Responsibilities

  • Oversee procurement for compressor program components
  • Identify and qualify dual-source vendors on the critical path
  • Coordinate simultaneous buying for prototype and production needs
  • Evaluate make-vs-buy strategies with engineering teams
  • Ensure procurement does not delay the concept-to-production schedule

Benefits

  • Opportunity to work on groundbreaking cooling solutions
  • Be part of a team tackling significant thermal management challenges
  • Engage in a fast-paced, innovative work environment
  • Facilitate the design and production of custom, industry-first machinery
  • Contribute to a critical path that drives the future of thermal technology
Full Job Description
The Thermofluids R&D Team

Examples of key problems the team is working on
  • Reject more than 10 gigawatts of heat, starting now. Fluidstack is targeting 10 GW of compute in 2027 and 30 GW the year after. Every watt of it becomes heat that has to go somewhere, and no cooling team has ever been asked to open at that number rather than grow into it.
  • Design and build the machines, because nobody can supply them. The merchant compressor market cannot deliver at this rate, and the vendor base behind today's chillers will not scale to gigawatts. We are taking compressor and chiller design in house, working on machine architectures nobody sells today, and going from blank sheet to production faster than this industry thinks is possible.
  • Own every thermofluids problem behind the fleet, not just the chiller. Working fluid and cycle architecture, heat exchangers at a scale that dominates the cost of the plant, two-phase heat transfer at the chip, and thermal energy storage. All of it is open, and whatever this team lands gets built thousands of times.
Role Scope
  • Own long-lead procurement for the compressor program: high-speed motors, magnetic bearings, forgings, castings, pressure vessels and test instrumentation.
  • Qualify and dual-source the vendors sitting on the critical path, where a single motor or bearing lead time can set the prototype date for the whole program.
  • Buy for the prototype and the production ramp at the same time, so the first machine does not quietly lock the fleet into a sole source.
  • Run the make-versus-buy calls with engineering, including which parts come off our own floor and which go outside.
  • Keep procurement off the critical path of a schedule that runs concept to production far faster than this industry does.


What We're Looking For

The below is a starting point. We always make space for exceptional people, so if you don't fit this role exactly, tell us where you would.
  • You've bought long-lead engineered hardware where the lead time, not the unit price, was the thing that decided the program.
  • You've qualified a second source for a part that everyone told you could only come from one place.
  • You've sat with engineers early enough to change a design for supply reasons, rather than being handed a finished BOM and a date.
  • You've carried a supplier through a prototype build while the drawings changed underneath them, and kept the relationship intact.
  • You've told a program its date was wrong and brought the lead-time evidence that settled the argument.
  • Bonus: Rotating machinery and precision-machined component sourcing. Aerospace or defense supply base (precision machine shops, forgings, castings, long-lead alloys). Motors, drives and bearings. Pressure equipment and specialist fabrication. Prototype-to-production transitions in hardware startups.


We are committed to pay equity and transparency.

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