About the Job:
We are seeking an experienced and hands-on procurement leader to scale our procurement function for a high-growth SaaS company. As the first dedicated procurement hire, you will design and drive the end-to-end procurement process, partner closely with Finance, Legal and cross-functional stakeholders (e.g. Engineering, Product, Go-to-Market, Ops) and ensure the vendor ecosystem supports our strategic and operational goals while optimizing cost, minimizing risk and adding value.
Responsibilities:
- Develop and implement a robust procurement framework, map current state, define target state, establish policies, governance and controls, including vendor intake, approval, contracting, renewal and off-boarding.
- Own the vendor lifecycle from selection through contracting, including negotiating, tracking performance, conducting renewals, and assessing risk management.
- Drive value for the company by identifying cost savings, consolidation opportunities, vendor rationalization, alternate sourcing, and service delivery optimization.
- Lead cross-functional stakeholder engagement with partners in Engineering, Product, and UX Design for on Tech software, Go-to-Market with SaaS and services vendors, Finance/Legal on contract terms, risk, amortization, and vendor obligations.
- Negotiate major vendor agreements (software, cloud services, professional services, managed services) and optimize commercial terms (pricing, usage, escalation, exit rights, SLAs).
- Deploy procurement tools (such as P2P workflows, vendor management systems, contract management systems), implement optimizations and automation, and ensure process adherence and efficiency.
- Define and monitor key procurement metrics like vendor count, spend by category and team, savings achieved, contract term, renewal rate, vendor risk score, and regularly report on these to the Finance leadership and Executive team.
- Support the annual budget/forecast process in coordination with Strategic Finance and business stakeholders ensuring vendor spend aligns with financial targets and growth plans.
- Drive continuous improvement and establish a culture of disciplined sourcing, value-based vendor relationships, transparency, and risk mitigation across the procurement ecosystem.
Qualifications:
- Requires a minimum of 8 years of related experience in a technology or high-growth SaaS company (or equivalent environment) with significant spend oversight.
- Proven experience negotiating complex contracts (cloud, software, services) and working with Legal/Risk functions.
- Experience designing and running Procure-to-Pay (P2P) processes and implementing procurement tooling/automation.
- Strong collaboration skills, showcasing an ability to engage with technical and non-technical stakeholders, influence without direct authority, and drive results in a dynamic environment.
- Strong analytical and financial acumen, comfort with vendor cost modeling, ROI assessment, amortization, and aligning vendor decisions with broader strategic/financial goals.
- Ability to present to executive leadership, manage vendor relationships, and drive change across functions.
- Experience managing vendor risk, performance measurement, renewals, and vendor lifecycle management.
- Able to build structure, process, and discipline in a rapidly growing, fast-paced company.
- Preferred: experience in SaaS business model, vendor consolidation, category management, and procurement governance frameworks.
Pay:
Target pay ranges based on Geographic Zones* for Level 5:
- Zone 1: San Francisco/Bay Area or NYC Metropolitan Area, Boston, Seattle - $171,000 - $235,000**
- Zone 2: Irvine, LA, Monterey, Santa Barbara, Santa Rosa, Austin, Portland, Philadelphia, Chicago - $154,000 - $211,000**
- Zone 3: All other US locations - $145,000 - $200,000*
LaunchDarkly operates from a place of high trust and transparency; we are happy to state the pay range for our open roles to best align with your needs. Exact compensation may vary based on skills, experience, and location.
*Within the United States, our geographic pay zones are defined by counties surrounding major metropolitan areas.
**Restricted Stock Units (RSUs), health, vision, and dental insurance, and mental health benefits in addition to salary.
About LaunchDarkly:
Modern software delivery was supposed to be the foundation for a thriving digital business but reality has proven otherwise. Slow, inefficient development cycles, costly outages, and fragmented customer experiences are preventing developers from building their best software. The LaunchDarkly platform helps developers innovate on new features faster while protecting them with a safety valve to instantly rewind when things go wrong. Developers can target product experiences to any customer segment and maximize the business impact of every feature. And by gradually rolling out new application components, they escape nightmare "big-bang" technology migrations.
The LaunchDarkly platform was built to guide engineers to the next frontier of DevOps by:
- Improving the velocity and stability of software releases, without the fear of end customer outages
- Delivering targeted experiences by easily personalizing features to customer cohorts
- Maximizing the business impact of every feature through the ability to experiment and optimize
- Coordinating the release and optimization of software to provide consistent experiences across mobile platforms and device types
- Improving the effectiveness and productivity of engineering teams, by providing insights into engineering cadence and stability
At LaunchDarkly, we believe in the power of teams. We're building a team that is humble, open, collaborative, respectful and kind. We are an equal opportunity employer and value diversity at our company. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status. LD invites any applicant to review our written Affirmative Action Plan. To do so, contact People Ops at hr@launchdarkly.com.
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