Procurement & Supply Chain Associate

About the Role

Alpaca is seeking a Procurement and Supply Chain Associate to join its growing business operations team. This role is responsible for developing end-to-end procurement and supply chain strategies.

Key Responsibilities

• Work with the Engineering team to identify required technical components (e.g., memory, FPGA/ASIC, boards, enclosures, power).
• Acquire and negotiate with IP vendors and suppliers (managing RFQs, MOQs, price, etc.).
• Propose Bill of Materials (BOM), model price, lead time, and volume breaks per unit.
• Outline a robust procurement process, including PO, inventory, and delivery tracking.
• Build a benchmarked pricing model for hardware components.
• Establish a network of delivery partners at various cost benchmarks to avoid production delays.

Within the first month, expectations include

• Learning the hardware architecture and current BOM with the engineering team.
• Building a BOM cost model with lead times and top supply risks.
• Identifying 2-3 suppliers per critical component and opening initial RFQs.
• Presenting a sourcing plan for the first V0 production run, including risks and fallbacks.

Requirements & Tech Stack

• Strong sourcing and procurement ability, ideally for electronics or hardware, including RFQs, MOQs, price breaks, and supplier negotiation.
• Good technical judgment to discuss components like memory, FPGA/ASIC, boards, power, and enclosures with engineers.
• Comfortable interacting with suppliers, IP vendors, contract manufacturers, logistics partners, and internal teams, with fluency in cost models, lead times, and inventory data.
• Ability to make decisions with incomplete information, such as thin quotes, volatile pricing, or scarce components.
• Enthusiasm for early-stage work and building processes.
• High ownership and flexibility with job boundaries.

Qualifications (Nice to Have)

• Experience taking a hardware product from prototype to production and sourcing its BOM.
• Experience with semiconductor, FPGA, memory, or high-performance compute supply chains, including allocation and long-lead components.
• Experience negotiating IP licensing or vendor agreements.
• Strong analytical skills, including building benchmarked pricing models and BOM cost models.
• Experience building a supply chain or procurement function from scratch, ideally at a startup.