About the role
At Zoox, we are building the future of autonomous mobility at scale. As we transition from development into industrialization and production growth, we are seeking a strategic procurement leader to build and lead our CAPEX & Tooling sourcing organization.
This role will own the commercial strategy, supplier partnerships, and team leadership across factory capital infrastructure, manufacturing equipment, and production tooling. The scope includes procurement for factory CAPEX, automation systems, assembly equipment, and direct tooling for vehicle sub-assemblies and components.
This leader will play a critical role in enabling Zoox’s manufacturing footprint and future production scale-up, ensuring world-class supplier partnerships, robust commercial governance, and scalable cost structures.
This is a highly cross-functional leadership role that will partner closely with Manufacturing, Engineering, Supply Chain, Quality & Reliability, Finance, and Operations.
In this role you will:
Team Leadership & Organization Building
Build and lead the CAPEX & Tooling Procurement organization, including hiring, mentoring, and developing a high-performing team of Strategic Sourcing Managers.
Partner with Manufacturing and Engineering leadership to inform factory design, production readiness, and industrialization roadmaps.
Establish scalable processes, procurement governance, and operating cadences tailored for a rapidly growing manufacturing organization.
Strategy & Execution
Develop and execute the sourcing strategy for factory build-outs, production equipment, automation, and manufacturing infrastructure.
Oversee the sourcing and supplier strategy for all factory, production and sub-assembly tooling, including robots, stamping dies, casting tooling, molds, and assembly fixtures.
Develop long-term sourcing roadmaps that enable new production launches, capacity expansion, and localization efforts.
Commercial & Supplier Management
Lead complex commercial negotiations, including master agreements, tooling contracts, SOWs, and pricing frameworks.
Establish and enforce robust governance across cost control, milestone adherence, engineering changes, supplier quality, and risk mitigation.
Build and maintain strategic relationships with key automation, tooling, and equipment partners.
Drive total cost of ownership (TCO) modeling, should-cost analysis, and cost transparency initiatives.
Qualifications
10+ years of strategic sourcing, procurement, supply chain, or commercial leadership experience. Ability to operate effectively across engineering, quality, operations, finance, and executive leadership
5+ years of people leadership experience, including leading and developing sourcing teams
Significant experience leading CAPEX procurement and tooling sourcing within a manufacturing environment.
Demonstrated experience supporting the build-out or launch of a production factory, plant, or major manufacturing line. Proven experience sourcing and negotiating for production equipment, automation systems, assembly lines & tooling
Strong commercial acumen with expertise in complex contract negotiation and supplier governance. Experience managing large-scale supplier relationships and multi-million dollar capital programs
Bonus Qualifications
Experience supporting greenfield factory builds or major production expansion programs
Strong preference for experience in automotive, EV, autonomous systems, aerospace, industrial manufacturing, other complex hardware production environments
Experience building procurement functions, category strategies, and operating processes from the ground up
Familiarity with tooling lifecycle management, tooling amortization structures, and ownership agreements
MBA or advanced technical / supply chain degree preferred
