Hardware Strategic Sourcing & Manufacturing Partnerships Manager

We’re seeking an experienced Hardware Strategic Sourcing & Manufacturing Partnerships Manager to lead strategic engagements with joint design manufacturers (JDMs), contract manufacturers (CMs), and original design manufacturers (ODMs) across OpenAI’s hardware ecosystem.

Based in Singapore, you will own the complete manufacturing partner lifecycle: developing sourcing strategies, leading RFIs and RFPs, evaluating and selecting JDM, CM, and ODM partners, negotiating commercial agreements, onboarding suppliers, launching manufacturing programs, and managing long-term partnerships.

You will work closely with engineering, manufacturing, supply chain, finance, legal, security, and program management teams to establish partnerships supporting AI-native silicon, rack-scale systems, and related infrastructure. Success requires strong commercial judgment, technical credibility, and hands-on operational execution.

In this role, you will:

• Develop and execute partnership strategies across JDM, CM, and ODM engagement models, identifying the appropriate manufacturing approach based on product requirements, technical complexity, scale, speed, cost, and risk.
• Lead end-to-end RFI and RFP processes for prospective JDM, CM, and ODM partners, including defining requirements, conducting market outreach, managing competitive bids, coordinating stakeholder evaluations, and presenting selection recommendations.
• Evaluate manufacturing partners across technical capabilities, product design and engineering resources, manufacturing readiness, quality systems, production capacity, financial stability, security, supply-chain resilience, commercial competitiveness, and strategic alignment.
• Negotiate and structure JDM, CM, and ODM agreements, including master services agreements, statements of work, engineering and manufacturing responsibilities, nonrecurring engineering, tooling, pricing, capacity commitments, intellectual property, warranties, service levels, and program-specific terms.
• Establish clear commercial and operational ownership across partner models, including design responsibilities, engineering deliverables, manufacturing execution, quality accountability, inventory exposure, supply commitments, and escalation procedures.
• Develop transparent cost and pricing structures covering bills of materials, engineering services, tooling, manufacturing labor, overhead, margin, volume assumptions, and total cost of ownership.
• Apply should-cost analysis, open-book pricing, benchmarking, and cost-down planning to evaluate partner proposals and improve long-term manufacturing economics.
• Lead partner onboarding and program bring-up, translating executed agreements into operating plans, resource commitments, technical readiness requirements, program milestones, governance structures, and cross-functional execution.
• Coordinate manufacturing readiness, new product introduction, design transfer, production ramp, and ongoing operations with engineering, manufacturing, supply chain, quality, finance, and program management teams.
• Build and maintain strong executive and working-level relationships with JDM, CM, and ODM partners, serving as the primary commercial point of contact throughout each partnership.
• Establish ongoing partner governance through performance scorecards, executive business reviews, delivery and capacity forecasts, corrective action plans, issue escalation, and continuous-improvement initiatives.
• Identify and mitigate risks related to manufacturing capacity, supplier concentration, quality, delivery, geopolitical exposure, and continuity across the partner ecosystem.
• Develop repeatable frameworks for partner selection, contracting, onboarding, and performance management, while supporting relevant ERP, MRP, and PLM system requirements.