Sr. Sourcing Manager, Contract Manufacturing

Pendulum•San Francisco, CA

4h•Hybrid

About The Position

Pendulum is seeking a Sr. Sourcing Manager, Contract Manufacturing to oversee the commercial and operational performance of its contract manufacturing network. This role involves managing partners responsible for raw materials, packaging inventory, blending, encapsulation, filling, cartoning, and finished goods preparation. The ideal candidate will possess a blend of strategic sourcing expertise and a practical understanding of manufacturing operations, capable of engaging with supplier executives, developing cost models, mapping production processes, and implementing improvement plans. This is a self-directed role requiring quick action, close involvement with the work, and ownership through to resolution.

Requirements

Bachelor's degree in Supply Chain, Engineering, Business, Operations, or a related field, or equivalent experience.
8+ years of experience in strategic sourcing, contract manufacturing, supplier management, manufacturing operations, or supply chain within a manufacturing environment.
Experience managing contract manufacturers in nutraceuticals, food and beverage, pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, medical devices, cosmetics, electronics or equivalent industry.
Demonstrated experience leading complex supplier negotiations and managing senior-level commercial relationships.
Strong should-cost capability, including the ability to deconstruct conversion costs, assess cost drivers, evaluate supplier margins, and identify negotiation and productivity opportunities.
Working knowledge of manufacturing operations and industrial engineering fundamentals, including process mapping, labor and capacity analysis, line balancing, bottleneck identification, throughput, yield, and changeover optimization.
Strong analytical skills and advanced proficiency with Google Sheets and/or Microsoft Excel.
Experience with NetSuite or another ERP system is preferred.

Nice To Haves

A go-getter with a strong bias for action who does not wait for perfect information or detailed direction before moving important work forward.
Comfortable moving between executive negotiations, analytical cost work, and hands-on problem solving on a manufacturing floor.
Strong commercial judgment paired with operational curiosity and enough technical depth to ask the right questions.
Ability to create structure, priorities, and clear action plans in fast-moving and ambiguous situations.
Clear, direct, and proactive communication with supplier executives, plant teams, technical stakeholders, and internal leadership.
High ownership, sound judgment, and the ability to independently drive multiple complex workstreams to completion.
Courage to challenge convention and be the first mover.
Will take ownership in solving problems, insatiably curious and demonstrating initiative in finding innovative and sustainable solutions.
Dedicated to rigor and accountability, forthright with our data, and ethical and transparent with our customers and each other.
Speak your mind, name the uncertainty, and operate with respect and authenticity.
Serve as part of our customer’s health journey, and support the Pendulum team as we thrive when prioritizing high standards with a low ego in support of our collective ambition.

Responsibilities

Own category strategy and commercial relationships for Pendulum's contract manufacturers across blending, encapsulation, bottling, labeling, cartoning, and related finished-goods operations.
Develop a clear supplier network strategy balancing capability, quality, capacity, service, cost, speed, and business continuity.
Lead supplier identification, diligence, selection, qualification, contracting, onboarding, transfers, and ongoing commercial management.
Negotiate pricing, payment terms, capacity commitments, lead times, inventory liability, service levels, change controls, and long-term agreements.
Build and maintain contingency plans, m options, and capacity pathways to support growth and reduce concentration risk.
Build transparent should-cost models separating raw material and packaging pass-throughs from labor, overhead, equipment, yield loss, scrap, testing, freight, and supplier margin.
Use open-book costing, market benchmarks, production assumptions, and on-site observations to deliver best-in-class COGS and validate proposed price changes.
Create fact-based negotiation strategies and deliver measurable savings without compromising quality, service, or supply continuity.
Partner with Finance and Supply Planning to translate forecasts, volumes, run sizes, and product mix into accurate cost and capacity scenarios.
Understand how supplier facilities operate, including material flow, production scheduling, staffing, equipment constraints, line speeds, yields, changeovers, maintenance, quality holds, and warehouse operations.
Map end-to-end manufacturing processes and identify bottlenecks, handoff failures, excess handling, avoidable downtime, and other sources of cost or lead-time variation.
Apply industrial engineering fundamentals such as cycle-time analysis, capacity modeling, line balancing, labor-content analysis, value-stream mapping, and constraint management.
Develop joint improvement roadmaps with suppliers and track actions through implementation, verified results, and sustained performance.
Spend time on the production floor to validate assumptions, investigate issues, and build practical solutions with supplier operations teams.
Serve as the primary commercial relationship owner for assigned contract manufacturers and build productive relationships from the executive team to plant-level operations.
Establish clear expectations, governance, scorecards, and business reviews covering quality, delivery, cost, responsiveness, inventory, capacity, and continuous improvement.
Identify performance gaps early, align suppliers on root causes and corrective actions, and escalate decisively when commitments are at risk.
Hold suppliers accountable while building collaborative, long-term partnerships that support innovation, scale, and mutual value creation.
Partner closely with Quality, Regulatory, Product, R&D, Supply Planning, Packaging, Logistics, and Finance to translate business requirements into executable supplier plans.
Lead sourcing and supplier-readiness workstreams for product launches, site transfers, packaging changes, scale-ups, and other manufacturing transitions.
Communicate risks, tradeoffs, decisions, and recovery plans clearly to cross-functional teams and senior leadership.
Create the tools, operating rhythms, and decision frameworks needed to improve supplier visibility, accountability, and execution.
Step into urgent or ambiguous problems, determine what is needed, and drive the right people to a decision and completed outcome.