The Role
Source and develop suppliers in China for mechanical, electronic, optical, and robotic hardware components. Review BOMs, drawings, datasheets, and specifications; coordinate DFM/DFA feedback; negotiate pricing and terms; track production; conduct quality inspections; manage export logistics to the US; and maintain supplier records. The role bridges Chinese suppliers and the US engineering team, requiring regular supplier visits, technical communication, persistence, and potential team-building in China.
Summary Generated by Built In
About Us
The Role
Minimum Requirements
What You'll Do
At moss.ag, we build robots to go where humans won't, digitizing the physical outdoor world to make it machine-readable. Starting with tree farms — where a single field holds millions of plants no human has ever fully inventoried. 🌲🤯🌳
We’re a small team of practical engineers with a long-term vision. We focus on real, messy, on-the-ground problems today, while working toward a future where autonomous field robots make harsh outdoor jobs easier and safer.
If our mission aligns with how you work and think, we’d love to learn more about you!
We are a startup, and this is not a big-company role. You will be our main person on the ground in China. You will work mainly with our Hardware Lead, who handles our engineering from San Francisco and does not speak Chinese, so you are the bridge between our team and every supplier we work with. You may also work with other team members from time to time. As our company grows, you will build and manage a team in China for sourcing, logistics, and engineering support.
The parts you will source cover whole robots and R&D projects we build. This includes machined and fabricated mechanical parts, sheet metal, plastics, cables and harnesses, PCBs and electronic components, sensors, and high-value items like cameras and lidars. Some orders are thousands of small parts for R&D. Some are a handful of expensive precision components where one mistake is very costly.
Your job in one sentence: Find the right parts, at the best quality, delivered to the US as fast as possible.
- Experience in technical sourcing, supplier development, and hardware supply chain work, covering mechanical parts as well as electronics
- Ability to read and understand BOMs, mechanical drawings, datasheets, and technical specifications
- Working knowledge of DFM and DFA
- Working knowledge of incoterms and cross-border shipping to the US
- Strong written and spoken English; experience working with overseas engineering teams or customers
- Extremely detail oriented. Small errors in specs, quotes, or shipments are expensive for us, and we need someone who catches them
- Persistent by nature. Comfortable following up with suppliers daily and asking direct questions until you get real answers
- Strong ownership, time management, and follow-through
- Comfortable working independently and remotely, with scheduled calls across US/China time zones
- Willing and able to travel for supplier visits, including trips alongside
- Sourcing and supplier development. Quickly find, evaluate, and maintain a network of qualified suppliers (manufacturers, distributors, traders, assemblers) across mechanical, electronic, and optical categories. Compare them on capability, cost, quality, lead time, and reliability.
- Chase production relentlessly. This is a core part of the job. Check in on active orders constantly. Do not wait for suppliers to update you. Find the specific technician or assembly worker responsible for our parts and follow up with them directly. When a schedule slips, push hard to recover it. You should be comfortable consistently raising concerns and working with the vendor teams.
- Report back with evidence. Send photos and short written reports to the US team on a regular basis: parts in production, samples, packaging, factory conditions. We make decisions on what you see very quickly, so communication and trust is very important.
- Technical coordination and DFM/DFA. Review BOMs, drawings, datasheets, and specs. Confirm parameters, feasibility, and substitutions with suppliers. You should understand design for manufacturing and design for assembly deeply enough to catch problems early, suggest changes that save cost or time, and translate supplier feedback quickly. Ask suppliers lots of questions. If something is unclear, dig until it is clear.
- Quality and pre-shipment inspection. Inspect parts before they ship. Build inspection checklists and quality tracking documents. Follow corrective actions through to completion, not just to a promise.
- Logistics and shipping. Know incoterms well (EXW, FOB, DAP, DDP, and when each one helps or hurts us). Work with our logistics agents to choose the fastest realistic delivery method to the US for each shipment, and manage the China-side export handover. Speed to our door matters as much as unit price.
- Negotiation. Negotiate pricing, MOQ, lead time, and payment terms. Prepare clear quote comparisons so we can decide fast.
- Travel and in-person work. Visit suppliers regularly on your own. When our team travels to China, you will travel with them: plan the factory visits, set the schedule, interpret, and help lead negotiations in the room.
- Keep good records. Maintain clear documentation of supplier communications, quotes, terms, and open issues. Simple, systematic, and easy for the US side to follow.
Skills Required
- Experience in technical sourcing, supplier development, and hardware supply chain work across mechanical parts and electronics
- Ability to read and understand BOMs, mechanical drawings, datasheets, and technical specifications
- Working knowledge of design for manufacturing and design for assembly
- Working knowledge of Incoterms and cross-border shipping to the United States
- Strong written and spoken English
- Experience working with overseas engineering teams or customers
- Extremely detail-oriented with strong accuracy in specifications, quotes, and shipments
- Persistent follow-through with suppliers and willingness to ask direct questions
- Strong ownership and time-management skills
- Ability to work independently and remotely across US and China time zones
- Willingness and ability to travel for supplier visits
Am I A Good Fit?
Get Personalized Job Insights.
Our AI-powered fit analysis compares your resume with a job listing so you know if your skills & experience align.
Success! Refresh the page to see how your skills align with this role.
The Company
What We Do
moss is an agtech company that designs and builds autonomous ground vehicles and robotics solutions for specialty crop farms. By utilizing a sophisticated stack of LiDAR, cameras, and GPS, the company provides farmers with high-fidelity digital inventory and field data. Their mission is to address labor shortages and enhance agricultural productivity by enabling autonomous farming through AI-powered monitoring and management of plant and field conditions.
