Procurement Lead

Vessl Ai•San Francisco, CA

1d•Onsite

About The Position

VESSL is hiring a Procurement Lead to lead all US procurement for its specialized AI cloud business. The role is responsible for securing US compute capacity, determining how it is financed, selecting and qualifying vendors, and bringing capacity online on schedule. As the first hire on the US Supply team, the Procurement Lead will manage deals end to end, from sourcing and negotiation through delivery, acceptance, and ongoing contract management. As the business grows, this person will build the team to scale the function. The role sits within VESSL’s global Supply function and reports to the Chief Strategy Officer, who leads supply globally. It is based on site in VESSL’s San Francisco office and involves close collaboration with the global supply team, US sales, product, infrastructure, and finance. The Procurement Lead will map the US data center value chain; source, verify, and secure capacity; conduct commercial and technical vendor diligence; structure financing and model unit economics; and run sourcing and contracting. The role also oversees delivery, cutover, acceptance testing, billing, payments, SLAs, renewals, and expansions. It owns a unified view of US capital and compute pipelines, aligns supply with customer demand, and regularly reports capacity, pipeline, capital status, and risks to HQ and leadership.

Requirements

At least 7 years of experience, including at least 2 years in investment banking or consulting, and hands-on work in the data center or cloud space.
Track record leading data center, colocation, hardware, or financing agreements involving significant financial commitments.
Ability to translate technical requirements into commercial terms and contract language.
Hands-on experience with billing, settlement, and SLA management after signing.
Working knowledge of the data center value chain, from power and operations to OEMs and capital providers, and sound judgment in assessing partner reliability and risk.
Strong diligence instincts, including verifying claims, underwriting counterparties, and building processes to identify problems before contracts are signed.
Experience hiring and leading a team, or readiness to build one from scratch.
Ability to work on site in San Francisco.

Nice To Haves

Hands-on experience negotiating MSAs, SLAs, and DPAs.
Hands-on experience in data center operations, deployment, or colocation, including power, cooling, rack density, and GPU networking.
Understanding of NVIDIA GPU systems such as HGX and GB200 NVL72, their configurations, and build lead times.
Experience designing benchmarks and acceptance test criteria.
An existing network across the compute and data center ecosystem.
Fluency in infrastructure finance, including capital flows into infrastructure assets, underwriting, and how financing terms affect unit economics.
AI-native working style, including use of tools such as Claude to model scenarios and accelerate diligence.

Responsibilities

Map the US data center value chain, including energy and power, data center developers and operators, OEMs and hardware partners, and capital backers.
Source new capacity and onboard supply partners; verify offered capacity and delivery timelines before negotiation.
Build relationships that provide early access to capacity and own US capacity milestones for GPU type, site, and delivery schedule.
Design and conduct vendor due diligence covering financial health, ownership and capital structure, hardware provenance, operational track record, and contract risk.
Conduct technical due diligence with Engineering on cluster specifications, networking, and storage.
Establish and enforce reliability qualification standards for data center partners, starting at Tier III standards for power, cooling, redundancy, and network.
Set proof-of-concept scope and acceptance criteria before commitments and build a repeatable procurement playbook.
Structure capacity financing, model unit economics, build relationships with financial partners, and negotiate financing terms alongside the Chief Strategy Officer.
Partner with Finance to convert available capital into a deployable compute plan and balance delivery speed against cash exposure.
Define deal requirements, issue RFIs, compare quotes, select partners, and negotiate pricing, contract terms, payment structures, and risk allocation.
Negotiate and execute MSAs, SLAs, and order forms, and handle KYC with HQ Legal and Finance.
Agree delivery schedules and milestones with partners; track progress and manage delivery, cutover, and acceptance testing.
Verify monthly invoices, settle payments, monitor SLAs, and claim credits when partners fall short.
Negotiate renewals and expansions.
Maintain a unified view of the US capital and compute pipelines across sourcing, diligence, negotiation, financing, contracting, and live capacity.
Partner with US sales to match supply and demand and translate demand signals into sourcing priorities.
Report US capacity, pipeline, capital status, and risks to HQ and leadership weekly and monthly.
Align with the global supply team on shared standards, supplier coverage, and capacity planning.
Build the US Supply team as procurement volume grows.