[Hiring] Supply Chain Lead @K1 Industries

Role Description

We are hiring a Supply Chain Engineer to build K1's supply chain for including generator, gearbox, skids, enclosures, controls, electrical, exhaust, emissions controls, etc. Your job is to build a supply chain that scales to 1 GW+ worth of units per year on spec, on time, and at a cost that works.

This role requires excellent technical, strategic, and commercial experience. You will sit with our engineers to understand what a component and subsystems have to do, then get on a plane to find who can build it, qualify them, negotiate the deal, and paper it in a Master Supply Agreement. We are looking for someone comfortable reviewing a drawing with an engineer in the morning, walking a fabrication shop in the afternoon, and negotiating terms with a partner the next day.

You will be K1's first dedicated supply chain hire, building the function from scratch and determining where and what capability to add. This is a high trust role where you will be given a bottomless credit card and a mandate of “turn the problems into answers that scale.”

What You'll Own

• Supplier discovery and qualification: find and vet suppliers for all components, capability, capacity, quality system, financial health, and how they will partner with K1 as we grow.
• Sourcing and negotiation: run RFQs, build should-cost models, and negotiate price, lead time, capacity commitments, and terms to close multi-million dollar deals.
• Master Supply Agreements: lead MSAs and long-term agreements with our major suppliers, owning the commercial substance and ensuring it meets technical and operational requirements.
• Design for supply: work with our design engineers early on make versus buy, supplier-ready drawings and specs, standard parts, and second sources, so more than one shop can build the design.
• Industrialization: from first articles for K1 to repeatable and scalable production. You will develop article inspections, factory acceptance tests, and corrective actions; engineering is your internal customer.
• Supplier development and performance: audits and site visits, delivery and quality tracking, escalation when a supplier slips, and priority capacity locked in before we need it.
• Market intelligence: know who makes what, where capacity is tight, and where lead times are heading, so K1 locks in partners and orders early.

Qualifications

• You have 6+ years in supplier development, strategic sourcing, or industrialization for physical hardware, and have built a supplier base from scratch at least once.
• You have an engineering degree or equivalent technical depth. You can read a drawing, walk a shop floor, and tell whether a supplier can actually build the part.
• You have negotiated and closed supply agreements worth millions of dollars with industrial suppliers, including MSAs or long-term agreements.
• You have taken parts or assemblies from prototype to production and lived through what broke along the way: late tooling, bad first articles, suppliers who overpromised.
• You have worked with fabricators, machine shops, and packagers on heavy hardware: weldments, skids, enclosures, rotating equipment, or electrical gear.
• You operate with minimal structure, are comfortable being the only supply chain person in the room, and would rather be at the supplier than on a call with them.
• Your title today might be Supplier Development Engineer, Supplier Industrialization Engineer, or Strategic Sourcing Manager.

Bonus Points for any of

• Sourcing experience with generators, gearboxes, switchgear, transformers, or turbine packages.
• Time at a hardware startup through rapid scaling (aerospace, defense, EV, energy), or at an OEM or packager building gensets, turbines, or compression equipment.
• Familiarity with API, IEEE, ASME, and ISO standards for power generation equipment and manufacturing.

Benefits

• Competitive salary and meaningful early-stage equity.
• Standard benefits package including health, dental, and vision insurance.

Location

Our headquarters is in Carson City, Nevada and welcome exceptional local and remote candidates.