Director, Hardware Procurement Operations Enablement - San Francisco Bay Area - Murdoch Mason Executive Search Group

Description

This onsite role is for a hands-on procurement operations owner who has built systems while execution was already underway in fast-moving, hardware-first technology environments. You know how to keep work moving when priorities shift, timelines compress, and requirements are still evolving—you're comfortable owning outcomes when there isn't a playbook yet and you want to be close to the work where decisions actually matter.

They're looking for someone who knows how to stand up procurement operations and influence outcomes immediately. You'll own details of policy, trade, tax, 3-way match, inputs that get to clean financial statements, etc. This role beyond strategic sourcing. It is well-suited for a successful Senior Manager ready for Director-level scope, or a Director who prefers hands-on ownership and operational impact over hierarchy.

You will be the day-to-day owner of how engineering demand, supplier execution, and financial governance connect across the business—ensuring controls work, decisions move, and hardware arrives when it's supposed to.

You will sit within finance and coordinate directly with multiple hardware engineering teams, owning how demand, approvals, spend, and supplier execution flow across the organization. You will make procurement work in environments where timelines are tight, requirements evolve quickly, and credibility is earned by delivery. This is not an ivory-tower strategy role and not a policy-setting role. It is a hands-on execution role for someone who understands strategy but proves value by delivering under real operating conditions.

This role starts with immediate ownership and hands-on execution. You'll be the first person responsible for building and operating this specialized procurement enablement function. Over time, as the work stabilizes and your value is proven with your partners, the role is expected to help shape and build a lean, high-impact team. Early success is defined by credibility, momentum, and results—not by headcount. Longer-term success is defined by building durable systems and a team within finance that enables the business to scale.

What You'll Actually Be Doing

You will personally own procurement enablement for large-scale infrastructure and systems hardware programs. And you will be the primary owner for making procurement execution work across these programs. That means working directly with engineering leaders who expect fast answers, sound judgment, and solutions that move work forward. You will translate real technical needs into executable purchasing, contracting, approval, and payment paths that finance can support and scale.

You will support hardware programs spanning prototype, test, and production, where decisions are constrained by physical materials, manufacturing realities, and real-world delivery timelines.

Your time will be spent unblocking issues, fixing gaps, tightening processes where they matter, and making tradeoffs between speed, cost, and control in real time, including ownership of procurement systems, controls, approvals, and supplier execution paths that keep programs moving without introducing friction or risk.

Who This Is For

This role will resonate with operators who have built, shipped, or supported complex hardware products inside large, technically demanding organizations—where manufacturing, engineering, finance, and supply chain are tightly coupled, and where execution speed, supplier access, and decision quality are direct sources of competitive advantage.

This role is designed for someone who has already:

• personally owned procurement outcomes inside large, complex technology hardware organizations
• operated close to engineering teams under compressed timelines
• been directly accountable when things broke, slipped, or changed
• earned credibility by solving problems directly rather than escalating them
• balanced speed with cost discipline and financial rigor in live environments
• improved processes while execution was already in motion

Where This Experience Is Typically Built

This role is typically a strong fit for operators whose experience was shaped in hardware-first technology companies where procurement had to be built or significantly reworked while products were already being designed, tested, or scaled. These environments often share several characteristics:

• Hardware and software teams are building in parallel, not sequentially
• Supplier strategies, contracts, and controls evolve alongside the product
• Engineering teams expect procurement to move at product-development speed
• Decisions are made with partial information to avoid blocking progress
• Process maturity improves while execution is already underway

This experience is less commonly developed in traditional manufacturing, steady-state automotive OEMs, or mature enterprises where procurement systems, supplier relationships, and approval structures are largely fixed before execution begins.

How You're Expected to Show Up

You move quickly, but you do not move carelessly. You are pragmatic about process, disciplined about outcomes, and comfortable making judgment calls with incomplete data. You are willing to be accountable when things go wrong, learn from failures, and improve processes, systems, and outcomes as a result. You care more about getting it right than getting credit. You are comfortable making first-order decisions where the impact is immediate and visible, and you own the outcome when tradeoffs don't go perfectly.

This is a highly responsive role. You will be in constant motion across Slack, email, meetings, and ad hoc requests. Success requires exceptional follow-through, fast communication, and the ability to keep multiple teams moving without dropping context.

Scope & Level Clarification

This role carries Director-level scope and impact. It begins with hands-on ownership and is expected to grow in responsibility as systems stabilize and the team matures.

Why This Role Is Worth Doing

This is an opportunity to operate at a very senior level, close to the work, in an environment where procurement actually matters. You will have the chance to prove yourself through execution, build trust with demanding partners, and help shape how procurement enablement works while the business is moving.

Compensation will be competitive and aligned with senior, hands-on leadership roles in large technology hardware environments.

Process & Confidentiality

This is a high-priority search for a critical hire. We are looking to move from initial conversation to offer in weeks, not months. Because of the immediate need for onsite collaboration in San Francisco, local candidates are preferred.

• Our firm is the only external search group working directly with the hiring executive on this role. This posting is the fastest and most direct route to consideration.
• Confidentiality first. We understand the sensitive nature of exploring new roles at this level; your interest will be held in strict confidence.