At Element Biosciences, we are passionate about our mission to empower the scientific community with more freedom and flexibility to accelerate our collective impact on humanity. We have built a highly efficient product-driven organization where employees can learn, grow, and thrive in a challenging but encouraging environment. We are committed to scientific integrity, collegiality, honesty, objectivity, and openness.
We are seeking a Strategic Sourcing Engineer to lead sourcing efforts for critical materials, components, and services across the product lifecycle—from development through commercialization. This hands-on role will be responsible for developing sourcing strategies, building supplier relationships, managing risks, and ensuring supply continuity while driving cost and quality improvements. You will work cross-functionally with R&D, Process Engineering, Quality, and Operations to ensure supplier capabilities align with technical and business requirements. The ideal candidate has a strong engineering background, analytical sourcing skills, and experience in regulated industries such as biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, diagnostics, or medical devices. Must operate in a fast-paced environment with rapidly shifting priorities over a large diversity of projects. The ability to deliver with focus while maintaining flexibility is key to success. This role will report to our Director, Strategic Sourcing and is a daily on-site role at our San Diego headquarters.
If you possess the following and want to make a meaningful impact, we invite you to explore this role.
Essential Functions and Responsibilities:
- Source complex engineering components and assemblies—including mechanical, fluidic, and optical systems—for next-generation sequencing platforms
- Collaborate with R&D and Operations to drive supplier selection for direct and indirect materials, contract manufacturing, and services, during both New Production Introduction (NPI) and post-launch phases
- Develop and implement sourcing strategies aligned with the technology roadmap, emphasizing cost efficiency, manufacturability, quality, optimized lead times, and risk mitigations
- Understanding of technical drawings and specifications, such as CAD models and blueprints
- Negotiate contracts to secure competitive pricing, favorable terms, and strategic supplier partnerships
- Partner with Quality to ensure supplier compliance with relevant standards such as ISO 13485
- Track and report supplier performance metrics; manage scorecards and implement corrective actions
- Strengthen supply chain resilience by qualifying alternate sources
- Maintain accurate sourcing documentation
- Leverage market intelligence, benchmarking, and cost modeling to manage cost-of-goods-sold (COGS) targets across product lifecycle stages, supply risks, cost drivers, make-vs-buy decisions, and dual sourcing strategies
- Conduct semi-annual business reviews with strategic suppliers to evaluate performance and strengthen partnerships
- Provide clear, data-driven updates to internal stakeholders through presentations and reports
Education and Experience:
- Bachelor’s degree in engineering, technical operations, or a related technical discipline
- 5–10 years of experience in life sciences with a focus in technical sourcing, process engineering, supplier quality, or procurement engineering
- Solid understanding of end-to-end supply chain principles and best practices
- Deep knowledge of product development lifecycles, Bill of Materials (BOM) structures, and supplier qualification processes
- Demonstrated expertise in contract negotiation and supplier relationship management
- Experience working with ERP systems such as NetSuite, SAP, or Oracle
- Proficient in data analysis and reporting tools, including Microsoft Excel and PowerPoint
- Experience with software tools such as AutoCAD, SolidWorks, etc.
- Highly detail-oriented, well-organized, and analytical with strong problem-solving skills
- Skilled in making data-driven decisions with a strong analytical mindset
- Proven ability to succeed in fast-paced environment with rapidly shifting priorities
- Effective communicator with the ability to influence and collaborate across departments
- Willing and able to challenge assumptions and offer objective, unbiased perspectives
Physical Requirements:
- Must be able to lift 15 pounds
Location:
- San Diego, CA (On-Site)
Travel:
- Travel required might be up to 10% (supplier visits)
Job Type:
- Full-time/Exempt
Base Compensation Pay Range:
- $119,000 - $156,000
In addition to base compensation noted above, you will be eligible for stock options, discretionary annual bonus, no cost health insurance plans, 401k with company match, and flexible paid time off.
Please note: Base compensation will depend on multiple factors, including geographic location, qualifications, and experience.
We foster an environment such that all people are afforded the freedom to pursue their passions without regard to race, color, religion, national or ethnic origin, gender (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, age, disability, veteran status or any other characteristics protected by law.
Top Skills
What We Do
Element Biosciences is a multi-disciplinary startup focused on innovating genetic analysis tools for the research and diagnostic markets. We are developing a modular and high-performing DNA sequencing platform that will deliver high-quality data, increase workflow flexibility, and make next-generation sequencing technology more accessible. Our proprietary approach to improving the signal-to-noise ratio allows us to provide groundbreaking innovations in surface chemistry, instrumentation, and biochemistry to drastically decrease run costs and capital costs while delivering high sequencing data quality.
