Head of Supply Chain

Tutor Intelligence•Watertown, MA

1d•Onsite

About The Position

Tutor Intelligence is hiring its first Head of Supply Chain to ensure the supply base never limits the speed of building and deploying robots. Reporting to the CTO, this person will build the supply chain function from the ground up, including the team, supplier base, planning engine, and tools. The role works across engineering, manufacturing, and quality, participates in new product introduction from early design, builds supplier partnerships, and drives cost reductions. The Head of Supply Chain will lead sourcing across mechanical, electrical, and electronic components; develop and qualify suppliers in Asia and, where appropriate, onshore; manage contract manufacturers; and negotiate contracts, pricing, and capacity. The role owns purchasing and planning end to end, including converting build plans into supply plans, managing MRP, long-lead buys, safety stock, and clear-to-build readiness. It also owns supply-chain input to the ECO process and the supply-chain systems roadmap. The role also oversees inbound freight from Asia, outbound shipping to customers in the US and Canada, customs, tariffs, landed cost, hazmat compliance, and 3PL partners. The Head will build systems for line-down prevention and continuous cost reduction, including live visibility into build plans, BOMs, inventory, purchase orders, and supplier capacity; shortage warnings and recovery plans; supplier health scoring; should-cost and landed-cost models; and savings tracking. The position inherits a small, hands-on group and will build out a lean team spanning supplier development and engineering in the US and China, contract manufacturing, electronics sourcing, purchasing, planning, and logistics. The role is on-site in Watertown, Massachusetts, and requires the ability to travel internationally about 25% of the time. Compensation is $220,000–$280,000 base, depending on experience, plus equity.

Requirements

Experience taking a hardware supply chain from startup to volume production, ideally in robotics or complex electromechanical systems.
Knowledge of electromechanical commodities, including fabricated and cast parts, electronics, motion, and power.
Experience developing suppliers in Asia in person and assessing their ability to scale.
Experience managing contract manufacturers and achieving cost reductions through negotiation and design changes.
Experience leading NPI sourcing from early design through ramp.
Experience building and leading teams while remaining hands-on.
Strong negotiation skills and the ability to maintain supplier relationships.
Technical ability to challenge engineers on design-for-supply.
Ability to travel internationally about 25% of the time.

Nice To Haves

Experience standing up ERP/MRP or supply-chain tooling from scratch and knowing when not to.
Experience moving work to contract manufacturers and making the transition stick.
Experience working across US, Canada, and Asia operations.
Experience in robotics or complex electromechanical systems.

Responsibilities

Set commodity strategy for mechanical, electrical, and electronic components.
Eliminate single sources for critical components and qualify second sources in Asia and onshore where appropriate.
Develop suppliers into partners that can add capacity and grow with the company.
Select and manage contract manufacturers.
Negotiate contracts, pricing, and capacity, and drive quarterly BOM cost reductions.
Own purchasing end to end.
Convert the build plan into a supply plan, including MRP, long-lead buys, safety stock, and clear-to-build readiness.
Own supply chain’s role in the ECO process, including cost, lead-time, and inventory impacts, cut-ins, and supplier notifications.
Own supply-chain systems and decide what to build, buy, or automate next.
Manage inbound freight from Asia and outbound shipping to customers in the US and Canada.
Oversee customs, tariffs, landed cost, hazmat compliance, and 3PL partners.
Build a line-down prevention system with live visibility, shortage warnings, recovery plans, supplier health scoring, and automated expedite, buffer, and second-source triggers.
Build a cost-down system using should-cost models, true landed cost, a savings pipeline, and early feedback of cost and sourcing risk into design.
Build and lead the supply chain team while remaining hands-on.
Work with engineering, manufacturing, and quality, participating in NPI from early design.