Back to jobs

Senior Manager, Procurement

Torrance, California, United States

About Epirus

Epirus designs and builds cutting-edge, high-powered microwave (HPM) systems that are redefining the capabilities of directed energy technology. With a proven foothold in the defense industry and expansion into adjacent commercial markets, we are transitioning from early production into scalable, high-rate manufacturing.

The Senior Manager, Procurement is a high-visibility, cross-functional leader responsible for defining and executing procurement strategy, strengthening supplier performance, and building scalable supply chain processes across both commercial and government programs. This role operates at the intersection of engineering, manufacturing, contracts, legal, program management, finance, and quality. The leader will be responsible for building procurement capabilities that can support rapid growth, increasing production complexity, and evolving regulatory requirements. The ideal candidate is a strategic operator who can translate company objectives into disciplined execution, confidently drive cross-functional alignment, and make sound trade-offs in high-pressure environments where demand signals, design maturity, and production readiness may be imperfect. This position requires exceptional business judgment, strong communication skills, and demonstrated experience operating in both defense and commercial supply chain environments.

 

Job Summary:

This role operates at the intersection of engineering, manufacturing, contracts, legal, program management, finance, and quality. The leader will be responsible for building procurement capabilities that can support rapid growth, increasing production complexity, and evolving regulatory requirements. The ideal candidate is a strategic operator who can translate company objectives into disciplined execution, confidently drive cross-functional alignment, and make sound trade-offs in high-pressure environments where demand signals, design maturity, and production readiness may be imperfect. This position requires exceptional business judgment, strong communication skills, and demonstrated experience operating in both defense and commercial supply chain environments.

Responsibilities


Cost Optimization

  • Develop and execute enterprise supplier negotiation strategies across commercial and government supply bases
  • Lead multi-year cost reduction initiatives, value engineering efforts, and strategic sourcing agreements
  • Establish cost control frameworks including should-cost modeling, competitive sourcing, and total cost of ownership (TCO) analysis
  • Ensure suppliers meet cost, schedule, and performance expectations aligned to production and program requirements

 
Demand Fulfillment & Supply Assurance

  • Own material availability strategy across production programs, ensuring alignment with engineering changes, demand signals, and production schedules
  • Translate evolving or imperfect planning signals into executable procurement actions (RFQs, POs, capacity commitments)
  • Proactively manage supplier responsiveness during demand volatility and scaling transitions
  • Resolve supply disruptions, PO discrepancies, and invoice issues with urgency and accountability

Strategic Sourcing & Supplier Management

  • Independently lead high-value supplier negotiations across commercial and government contracts, including pricing, lead time, capacity commitments, and long-term supply agreements
  • Review, draft, and negotiate complex commercial terms and conditions (T&Cs), ensuring appropriate balance of risk, liability, and performance expectations
  • Interpret and negotiate contract structures including IP ownership, warranty, indemnification, flow-down clauses, and FAR/DFARS requirements
  • Partner closely with Legal and Contracts to ensure procurement agreements are structurally sound, enforceable, and aligned with program risk posture
  • Drive negotiation strategy across key suppliers to improve cost, reduce risk exposure, and secure priority capacity during scaling phases

Cross-Functional Leadership & Influence

  • Serve as a primary procurement leader interfacing with Finance, Engineering, Planning, and Program Management
  • Drive alignment across competing priorities, ensuring procurement decisions reflect total business impact
  • Confidently challenge assumptions and advocate for supply chain realities using data-driven reasoning and sound judgment
  • Establish clear decision frameworks and escalation paths to accelerate resolution of cross-functional trade-offs
  • Maintain strong supplier relationships that support long-term reliability, scalability, and performance

Visibility, Reporting & Systems

  • Develop procurement dashboards and KPIs covering supplier health, risk, cost performance, and delivery metrics
  • Communicate supply chain status, risks, and mitigation strategies to executive leadership and stakeholders
  • Ensure procurement operations align with company policies, audit readiness, and regulatory requirements
  • Support ERP stabilization and optimization efforts during system maturation (Oracle Fusion Cloud SCM or equivalent)

Leadership & Team Development

  • Lead, coach, and develop a growing procurement team (scaling from ~3 to 10 within 12 months)
  • Establish clear operating rhythms, accountability structures, and performance expectations
  • Build a culture of ownership, urgency, and disciplined execution
  • Support organizational scaling through workforce planning and capability development

Process Improvement & Compliance

  • Design and standardize scalable procure-to-pay (P2P) processes that support both low-rate and high-rate production
  • Drive procurement system maturity, data integrity, and workflow consistency
  • Lead readiness efforts for AS9100, CPSR, DCMA audits, and internal compliance reviews
  • Improve procurement tooling, automation, and reporting to increase transparency and efficiency

 

Basic Qualifications

  • Bachelor’s degree in Supply Chain, Engineering, Business, or related field
  • 6+ years of progressive management experience leading procurement or supply chain teams
  • Experience operating in both commercial and regulated/government supply chain environments
  • Demonstrated success managing complex supply bases supporting production or manufacturing operations

 

Preferred Skills and Experience

  • Experience in defense, aerospace, electronics, or complex hardware manufacturing environments
  • Strong understanding of FAR/DFARS, AS9100, CPSR readiness, and defense procurement frameworks
  • Experience scaling supply chains from prototype/low-rate production into high-volume manufacturing
  • Ability to interpret technical drawings and engineering specifications
  • Proven success in supplier negotiations spanning both commercial and government contracts
  • Strong vendor management experience with domestic and international suppliers
  • Demonstrated ability to improve procurement KPIs (cost, delivery, cycle time, supplier performance)
  • Experience implementing or optimizing ERP systems (preferably Oracle Fusion Cloud SCM or similar)
  • Strong analytical, communication, and decision-making skills in fast-paced environments
  • Deep experience leading end-to-end supplier negotiations, including both pricing and non-pricing commercial terms
  • Strong background in reviewing and negotiating contract Terms & Conditions (T&Cs), ideally in defense, aerospace, or complex manufacturing environments
  • Familiarity with legal and contractual frameworks including FAR/DFARS, IP clauses, liability structures, and flow-down requirements
  • Demonstrated ability to balance commercial outcomes with legal and operational risk considerations in supplier agreements

 

ITAR REQUIREMENTS:  

  • To conform to U.S. Government space technology export regulations, including the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) you must be a U.S. citizen, lawful permanent resident of the U.S., protected individual as defined by 8 U.S.C. 1324b(a)(3), or eligible to obtain the required authorizations from the U.S. Department of State. Learn more about the ITAR here.   

 

At Epirus, you’ll work with technical peers and great people—and get first crack at some of the defining technology challenges of our time. Here, “impossible” is just a challenge. 

As required by the Equal Pay Transparency Act, Epirus provides a reasonable range of minimum compensation for roles that may be hired. Actual compensation is influenced by a wide array of factors including but not limited to skill set, level of experience, and specific office location. 

For the state of California only, the range of starting pay for this role is:

$174,700 - $217,500 USD

Create a Job Alert

Interested in building your career at Epirus? Get future opportunities sent straight to your email.

Apply for this job

*

indicates a required field

Resume/CV

Accepted file types: pdf, doc, docx, txt, rtf

Cover Letter

Accepted file types: pdf, doc, docx, txt, rtf

Select...
Select...

To conform to U.S. Government space technology export regulations, including the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) you must be a U.S. citizen, lawful permanent resident of the U.S., protected individual as defined by 8 U.S.C. 1324b(a)(3), or eligible to obtain the required authorizations from the U.S. Department of State. Learn more about ITAR here.

Select...
Do you have any examples of work you'd like to share?

Accepted file types: pdf, doc, docx, txt, rtf

Voluntary Self-Identification

For government reporting purposes, we ask candidates to respond to the below self-identification survey. Completion of the form is entirely voluntary. Whatever your decision, it will not be considered in the hiring process or thereafter. Any information that you do provide will be recorded and maintained in a confidential file.

As set forth in Epirus’s Equal Employment Opportunity policy, we do not discriminate on the basis of any protected group status under any applicable law.

Select...
Select...
Race & Ethnicity Definitions

If you believe you belong to any of the categories of protected veterans listed below, please indicate by making the appropriate selection. As a government contractor subject to the Vietnam Era Veterans Readjustment Assistance Act (VEVRAA), we request this information in order to measure the effectiveness of the outreach and positive recruitment efforts we undertake pursuant to VEVRAA. Classification of protected categories is as follows:

A "disabled veteran" is one of the following: a veteran of the U.S. military, ground, naval or air service who is entitled to compensation (or who but for the receipt of military retired pay would be entitled to compensation) under laws administered by the Secretary of Veterans Affairs; or a person who was discharged or released from active duty because of a service-connected disability.

A "recently separated veteran" means any veteran during the three-year period beginning on the date of such veteran's discharge or release from active duty in the U.S. military, ground, naval, or air service.

An "active duty wartime or campaign badge veteran" means a veteran who served on active duty in the U.S. military, ground, naval or air service during a war, or in a campaign or expedition for which a campaign badge has been authorized under the laws administered by the Department of Defense.

An "Armed forces service medal veteran" means a veteran who, while serving on active duty in the U.S. military, ground, naval or air service, participated in a United States military operation for which an Armed Forces service medal was awarded pursuant to Executive Order 12985.

Select...

Voluntary Self-Identification of Disability

Form CC-305
Page 1 of 1
OMB Control Number 1250-0005
Expires 04/30/2026

Why are you being asked to complete this form?

We are a federal contractor or subcontractor. The law requires us to provide equal employment opportunity to qualified people with disabilities. We have a goal of having at least 7% of our workers as people with disabilities. The law says we must measure our progress towards this goal. To do this, we must ask applicants and employees if they have a disability or have ever had one. People can become disabled, so we need to ask this question at least every five years.

Completing this form is voluntary, and we hope that you will choose to do so. Your answer is confidential. No one who makes hiring decisions will see it. Your decision to complete the form and your answer will not harm you in any way. If you want to learn more about the law or this form, visit the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) website at www.dol.gov/ofccp.

How do you know if you have a disability?

A disability is a condition that substantially limits one or more of your “major life activities.” If you have or have ever had such a condition, you are a person with a disability. Disabilities include, but are not limited to:

  • Alcohol or other substance use disorder (not currently using drugs illegally)
  • Autoimmune disorder, for example, lupus, fibromyalgia, rheumatoid arthritis, HIV/AIDS
  • Blind or low vision
  • Cancer (past or present)
  • Cardiovascular or heart disease
  • Celiac disease
  • Cerebral palsy
  • Deaf or serious difficulty hearing
  • Diabetes
  • Disfigurement, for example, disfigurement caused by burns, wounds, accidents, or congenital disorders
  • Epilepsy or other seizure disorder
  • Gastrointestinal disorders, for example, Crohn's Disease, irritable bowel syndrome
  • Intellectual or developmental disability
  • Mental health conditions, for example, depression, bipolar disorder, anxiety disorder, schizophrenia, PTSD
  • Missing limbs or partially missing limbs
  • Mobility impairment, benefiting from the use of a wheelchair, scooter, walker, leg brace(s) and/or other supports
  • Nervous system condition, for example, migraine headaches, Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis (MS)
  • Neurodivergence, for example, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), autism spectrum disorder, dyslexia, dyspraxia, other learning disabilities
  • Partial or complete paralysis (any cause)
  • Pulmonary or respiratory conditions, for example, tuberculosis, asthma, emphysema
  • Short stature (dwarfism)
  • Traumatic brain injury
Select...

PUBLIC BURDEN STATEMENT: According to the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 no persons are required to respond to a collection of information unless such collection displays a valid OMB control number. This survey should take about 5 minutes to complete.