Vendor Strategy & Performance Lead, Design & Construction

Vendor Strategy & Performance Lead, Design & Construction

Costa Mesa, California, United States

Anduril Industries is a defense technology company with a mission to transform U.S. and allied military capabilities with advanced technology. By bringing the expertise, technology, and business model of the 21st century's most innovative companies to the defense industry, Anduril is changing how military systems are designed, built and sold. Anduril's family of systems is powered by Lattice OS, an AI-powered operating system that turns thousands of data streams into a realtime, 3D command and control center. As the world enters an era of strategic competition, Anduril is committed to bringing cutting-edge autonomy, AI, computer vision, sensor fusion, and networking technology to the military in months, not years.

About The Team

The Design & Construction team at Anduril delivers the factories, labs, offices, and secure spaces that enable our teams to design, build, and deploy advanced defense technology. Our projects span high-performance manufacturing facilities, mission-critical secure environments, and collaborative workspaces, giving our team exposure to a uniquely wide variety of technical and operational challenges. More than just delivering buildings, we are (literally) rebuilding the American defense industrial base. Our work accelerates how quickly critical technology moves from concept to production and into the hands of the warfighter. The Capital Operations team sits within Design & Construction and provides the operating backbone that helps the organization scale. We build the processes, tools, governance, analytics, standards, and special initiatives that help our construction project teams deliver faster, more predictably, and with better outcomes. Our focus areas include Project Controls, Design Integration, Strategy & Operations, and Vendor Strategy.

About The Job

We are looking for a Vendor Strategy & Performance Lead to oversee our global construction vendor ecosystem. This person will partner closely with Construction Project Managers, Strategic Sourcing, Procurement, Legal, and others.

Vendor Strategy

• Develop Design & Construction's vendor strategy across key project-delivery categories, including general contractors, construction managers, architects, engineers, owner's reps, specialty consultants, commissioning agents, and more, ensuring comprehensive coverage across our global operating regions.
• Build and maintain a preferred vendor bench by geography (including the US, APAC, Europe, and the Middle East), project type, technical specialty, security need, scale, and performance history.
• Identify where Anduril should introduce new vendors to increase capacity, reduce risk, improve pricing tension, or access specialized capabilities.

Pre-Qualifications and Vendor Evaluation

• Establish a repeatable pre-qualification process for construction, design, consulting, and specialty partners across our global vendor ecosystem.
• Define practical evaluation criteria, including relevant experience, team quality, technical capability, cost competitiveness, schedule performance, safety, security requirements, financial stability, regional regulatory compliance, local market dynamics, and fit with Anduril's pace.
• Build vendor evaluation templates, interview guides, reference-check approaches, and scoring models that are rigorous but not bureaucratic.
• Maintain a central record of vendor qualifications, strengths, risks, past performance, and recommended use cases.

RFP, SOW, and Commercial Support

• Support select request for proposal (RFP) engagements for major or strategically important vendor categories, spanning both domestic and international projects, in partnership with Strategic Sourcing, Procurement, Legal, Finance, and D&C leadership.
• Help write clear scopes of work (SOW) that reduce ambiguity, improve bid quality, and set vendors up to deliver the intended outcome.
• Review proposals for scope gaps, unclear assumptions, exclusions, staffing concerns, commercial risk, and operational feasibility.
• Provide D&C-side input into fee models, rate cards, reimbursables, staffing plans, change-management expectations, escalation paths, and performance requirements.

Vendor Performance Management

• Establish a vendor performance management rhythm for key D&C partners, including scorecards, business reviews, escalation paths, and action plans.
• Define practical KPIs across cost, schedule, quality, responsiveness, documentation, safety, change management, and issue resolution.
• Create a feedback loop so project-level experiences influence future vendor selection and contracting decisions.
• Track vendor concentration, capacity risk, geographic coverage, and recurring performance issues.
• Build executive-ready materials that communicate vendor performance, risks, recommendations, and decisions needed.

Required Qualifications

• Minimum of 10 years of progressive experience in construction management, corporate real estate, owner's representation, construction procurement, vendor management, commercial management, project controls, or a related field.
• Strong understanding of the construction project lifecycle, including design, preconstruction, procurement, construction, commissioning, closeout, and handover.
• Experience working with construction-related vendors such as general contractors, construction managers, architects, engineers, specialty consultants, owner's reps, commissioning agents, inspectors, or technical trade partners.
• Ability to evaluate vendor capabilities, project teams, scopes of work, proposals, and commercial structures with practical construction judgment.
• Strong written communication skills, especially for scopes of work, vendor recommendations, executive summaries, process documents, and decision materials.
• Ability to operate cross-functionally with Construction Project Managers, Procurement, Strategic Sourcing, Legal, Finance, technical stakeholders, and senior leaders.
• Strong judgment and ownership; you can build a process where none exists, but you know when not to over-process a fast-moving project team.
• Ability to communicate clearly with external vendors while representing Anduril's pace, standards, and expectations.
• Willingness to travel up to 1020% of the time, depending on project and vendor needs.
• Must be a U.S. Person due to required access to U.S. export controlled information or facilities

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with global or vendor ecosystems in the US, APAC, Europe, and Middle East is highly valued.

US Salary Range

$166,000 - $220,000 USD

The salary range for this role is an estimate based on a wide range of compensation factors, inclusive of base salary only. Actual salary offer may vary based on (but not limited to) work experience, education and/or training, critical skills, and/or business considerations. Highly competitive equity grants are included in the majority of full time offers; and are considered part of Anduril's total compensation package. Additionally, Anduril offers top-tier benefits for full-time employees, including:

Benefits

At Anduril, we invest in our people. Our comprehensive, competitive benefits package (available at little to no cost to employees) ensures you're supported in health, recovery, and whatever comes next. For more information, Explore Our Benefits.

Protecting Yourself from Recruitment Scams

Anduril is committed to maintaining the integrity of our Talent acquisition process and the security of our candidates. We've observed a rise in sophisticated phishing and fraudulent schemes where individuals impersonate Anduril representatives, luring job seekers with false interviews or job offers. These scammers often attempt to extract payment or sensitive personal information.

To ensure your safety and help you navigate your job search with confidence, please keep the following critical points in mind:

• No Financial Requests: Anduril will never solicit payment or demand personal financial details (such as banking information, credit card numbers, or social security numbers) at any stage of our hiring process. Our legitimate recruitment is entirely free for candidates.

• Please always verify communications:
  • Direct from Anduril: If you receive an email from one of our recruiters, it will only come from an @anduril.com address.
  • Via Agency Partner: If contacted by a recruiting agency for an Anduril role, their email will clearly identify their agency. If you suspect any suspicious activity, please verify the agency's authenticity by reaching out to contact@anduril.com.

• Exercise Caution with Unsolicited Outreach: If you receive any communication that appears suspicious, contains grammatical errors, or makes unusual requests, do not engage. Always confirm the sender's email domain is @anduril.com before providing any personal information or clicking on links.

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