MEP & Structural Sourcing, Director

Fluidstack•Austin, TX

4d•$262,000 - $328,000

About The Position

Fluidstack is building civilization-scale infrastructure for AI, focusing on delivering 10 to 100s of GWs of compute faster than anyone else. This involves acquiring power, designing and building data centers, and operating them. The Supply Chain team is crucial for maintaining this speed by ensuring long-lead equipment is procured, built, and delivered ahead of schedule. Key challenges include supplying gigawatt-scale compute, qualifying and dual-sourcing critical equipment, making supply chain a competitive advantage, and building accurate supply chain prediction models using AI. This role will lead MEP and structural sourcing, owning electrical, mechanical, and structural steel categories end-to-end. This includes switchgear, transformers, UPS, generators, busway, chillers, CDUs, pumps, piping packages, and steel. The position involves building and running a team of sourcing managers, setting category strategies, locking in capacity years in advance through negotiations and multi-year supply agreements, and qualifying second sources for critical path equipment. The goal is to keep procurement off the critical path by tracking supplier production milestones and escalating potential delays proactively. Collaboration with engineering and manufacturing is essential to freeze equipment specifications early and incorporate supplier feedback into design decisions.

Requirements

Led sourcing for major electrical and mechanical equipment (switchgear, transformers, UPS, generation, chillers, CDUs) on large construction or data center programs.
Managed a team of category managers or buyers and can show the results they delivered under you.
Reserved factory capacity ahead of firm designs and managed the commercial risk that creates.
Negotiated multi-year committed-volume agreements with OEMs and held them to price, lead time, and capacity.
Know the current lead-time reality of the electrical and mechanical markets by product class, not by rumor.
Expedited equipment through a factory by knowing whom to call and what to trade.
Read specifications and drawings well enough to challenge a spec or a price with substance.

Nice To Haves

Structural steel and modular skid packages.
MV/HV equipment.
Direct-to-chip liquid cooling.
OFCI programs.
Factory witness testing.

Responsibilities

Lead MEP and structural sourcing, owning the electrical, mechanical, and structural steel categories end to end: switchgear, transformers, UPS, generators, busway, chillers, CDUs, pumps, piping packages, and steel.
Build and run the team, including hiring, developing, and holding accountable sourcing managers for each category, and setting the category strategies they execute.
Lock in capacity years ahead by negotiating capacity reservations and multi-year supply agreements with OEMs, converting reservations to orders as the pipeline firms.
Dual-source the critical path by qualifying second sources across equipment classes whose products are not interchangeable, and managing the design implications with engineering.
Keep procurement off the critical path by tracking factory slots and production milestones supplier by supplier, and escalating before a slipped delivery becomes a slipped data hall.
Partner with engineering and manufacturing to freeze equipment specs early enough to buy at the lead times the market gives, and feed supplier reality back into design decisions.