Job Description

Manager of Strategic Sourcing, Software and Engineering

Location: Hybrid role in:

Austin, TX

Madison, WI

San Francisco, CA

The Global Strategic Sourcing team helps maximize value and minimize risk through Zendesk’s vendor relationships and ensures the organization has the goods and services needed for success.

As Manager of Strategic Sourcing, you will play a key role during the sourcing strategy and execution across software and engineering categories. You’ll use your innovative thinking, analytical and negotiating skills to oversee and lead highly complex negotiations, contract review, and usage forecasting to achieve top-line growth and maximize value to the company.

This role encompasses all aspects of the sourcing’s responsibilities including category assessment, vendor due diligence, RFx, contract negotiations and vendor management.

Key responsibilities:

Strategic Guidance & Influence: Guide and influence business and senior leadership through key strategic projects and procurement strategy, focusing on critical vendor management, integration, and informed purchase guidance aligned to Zendesk growth and partner vision. This includes developing executive-level presentations and analysis for internal partner communications/updates.
Forecasting & Data Alignment: Develop, maintain, and validate accurate forecasts for usage, licenses, and capacity for key contracts (e.g., AWS, Google, MongoDB, Snowflake, and others) in collaboration with Engineering, IT, and business units to gather data and identify trends or potential risks to inform contract negotiations and prevent over-commitment or unnecessary costs.
AI/LLM Sourcing & Optimization: Lead sourcing strategy, complex negotiations, and vendor diversification for Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Large Language Model (LLM) providers. Analyze and optimize AI/LLM consumption, including token usage and capacity planning, to inform contract negotiations and mitigate financial risk.
Sourcing Execution & Cost Management: Lead end-to-end sourcing execution, including market research, RFx strategy development, and acting as an escalation point for contract negotiations partnering with Legal, Security, and IT. Support spend management projects focused on savings, process efficiency, and risk reduction, including total cost of ownership evaluations and pricing audits.
Multi-Vendor LLM Strategy: Implement and manage a multi-vendor LLM ecosystem strategy, including coordinating sourcing for frontier labs (e.g., OpenAI, Anthropic), hyperscaler routes (e.g., AWS Bedrock, Gemini/Vertex), and open-weight model providers (e.g., Groq, Baseten) to ensure diversification, cost efficiency, and performance optimization.
Commercial Leverage & Commitment Discipline: Drive commercial leverage by maintaining commitment discipline (targeting ~60% of forecasted spend) and pursuing flexible, shorter (6-12 month) renewal cycles with major LLM providers to mitigate market volatility and pricing shifts.
AI Productivity Governance: Collaborate with Engineering and IT to manage the governance layer for internal AI productivity tooling (e.g., LibreChat, Claude Code, Gemini) to track seat vs. consumption costs and align model spend with security and legal approvals.

Personal qualities:

5+ years of experience sourcing for a tech or software company
Strong software and engineering strategic negotiation skills
Proven team player and ability to build and maintain business partnerships
Executive level communication and presentation skills
Highly motivated towards achieving cost savings and operational improvement goals
Demonstrated subject matter expertise in the functional areas of Technology, product and engineering.
Proven success leading projects that impact multiple functional areas
Flexibility and influence in working in a high growth, high volume environment
Demonstrated subject matter expertise in AI infrastructure, including RAG frameworks, AI gateways, and consumption-based pricing models.
Understanding of how AI and automation are reshaping the competitive landscape for software and professional services vendors.
Proven ability to integrate commercial strategy with a technical ecosystem, specifically leveraging hyperscaler routes for negotiating better terms and model portability.
Experience negotiating with vendors offering revenue-based pricing models and managing data usage agreements that involve AI/LLM usage, such as API renewals.

The US annualized base salary range for this position is $116,000.00-$174,000.00. This position may also be eligible for bonus, benefits, or related incentives. While this range reflects the minimum and maximum value for new hire salaries for the position across all US locations, the offer for the successful candidate for this position will be based on job related capabilities, applicable experience, and other factors such as work location. Please note that the compensation details listed in US role postings reflect the base salary only (or OTE for commissions based roles), and do not include bonus, benefits, or related incentives.

The intelligent heart of customer experience

Zendesk software was built to bring a sense of calm to the chaotic world of customer service. Today we power billions of conversations with brands you know and love.

Zendesk believes in offering our people a fulfilling and inclusive experience. Our hybrid way of working, enables us to purposefully come together in person, at one of our many Zendesk offices around the world, to connect, collaborate and learn whilst also giving our people the flexibility to work remotely for part of the week.

As part of our commitment to fairness and transparency, we inform all applicants that artificial intelligence (AI) or automated decision systems may be used to screen or evaluate applications for this position, in accordance with Company guidelines and applicable law.

Zendesk is an equal opportunity employer, and we’re proud of our ongoing efforts to foster global diversity, equity, & inclusion in the workplace. Individuals seeking employment and employees at Zendesk are considered without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, age, sex, gender, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, marital status, medical condition, ancestry, disability, military or veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by applicable law. We are an AA/EEO/Veterans/Disabled employer. If you are based in the United States and would like more information about your EEO rights under the law, please click here.

Zendesk endeavors to make reasonable accommodations for applicants with disabilities and disabled veterans pursuant to applicable federal and state law. If you are an individual with a disability and require a reasonable accommodation to submit this application, complete any pre-employment testing, or otherwise participate in the employee selection process, please send an e-mail to peopleandplaces@zendesk.com with your specific accommodation request.