Global Supply Manager — Airbound

About Airbound

Our mission is to make a world where everyone has access to delivery. Where goods move as freely as information moves today.

This is possible. Today the cost of moving on a scooter is ₹2/km. That’s the cost of moving a 150kg mass from point A to B. We’re bringing that mass down to less than 5kgs, concurrently bringing the cost down to 10 paise/km. This is how we make deliveries a reality. This is how we create a world where we’re doing billions of deliveries per day.

The tech is not there. The current cost of drone delivery is ₹100/km. We need to completely redefine the way things are done here. We’re building the world’s most efficient aircraft from the ground-up, and scaling that up to beyond anything the aerospace sector has ever seen. This cannot be an iterative process. We have to tear down all conventions and build everything up from scratch.

To do this, we need nothing less than the best engineers. The ones who care about building something fundamentally different, who are deeply curious about understanding the fundamentals of everything they’re working on, who are dreamers that believe in the impossible.

About the Role

We are building something that hasn't existed before. This role owns the commercial side of how we buy — what it costs, who we buy it from, and how we keep leverage as we scale. You'll sit at the intersection of engineering and business, owning supplier selection and cost for our hardware. You're a commercial operator who can read a drawing and a cost model with equal fluency, build competition into a supply base that barely exists for a product like ours, and negotiate deals that hold up as volumes move from tens to thousands.

Key Responsibilities

Supplier Selection & Roadmap

• Own the decision of who builds our parts
• Identify and qualify suppliers across mechanical, composite, and electronic commodities
• Run structured sourcing events and build a long-term supplier roadmap with deliberate diversification — in number of suppliers and geographic spread — so no single vendor, region, or regulatory regime can stall production

Cost Strategy & Negotiation

• Develop and execute cost strategies using our volume and forward-looking production plans as leverage
• Run quarterly negotiation cycles on shipping parts
• Structure creative multi-part and multi-year deals, and hold suppliers to committed cost-down curves

Should-Cost & Commercial Analysis

• Build bottoms-up and should-cost models down to material, cycle time, tooling, yield, and margin
• Use them to challenge quotes line by line and identify where a process change or design tweak unlocks real savings
• Qualify alternate processes where they make commercial sense

Engineering Partnership

• Work hand-in-hand with design and manufacturing engineering to intercept cost at the design stage, where most of it is decided
• Translate design intent into commercial consequence and flag expensive choices before they're frozen
• Ensure supplier selection lands ahead of engineering milestones — not after

Risk & Compliance

• Own supply risk on our most constrained inputs
• Map single-source exposure and lead-time risk
• Navigate export controls, end-use documentation, licensing, and import compliance on materials where the regulatory path is as hard as the commercial one

Reporting & Executive Communication

• Own cost roadmaps, spend visibility, and supplier performance reporting
• Present cost positions and sourcing decisions to leadership and investors, with the analysis behind them ready to withstand scrutiny

Qualifications

Must-Have

• 5–8 years in strategic sourcing, global supply management, or commodity management — ideally from a fast-paced startup, a hardware-centric company, or a complex manufacturing environment where you owned both the deal and the delivery
• Negotiation: outstanding, structured negotiation skills. Ability to build leverage from volume, credible alternates, and genuine understanding of the supplier's cost structure, and close terms that survive the next two years, not just the next PO
• Global ecosystem fluency: a comprehensive understanding of the international supply landscape — who the real tier-1 producers are, where capacity actually sits, how raw material pricing moves, and how trade policy, export controls, and duties shape what is genuinely procurable from where
• Connections: an existing network of suppliers, mills, converters, distributors, agents, and freight partners you can call directly
• Mechanical or technical acumen strong enough to negotiate on manufacturing process and design fundamentals, not just price. BE/BTech in Mechanical, Industrial, or Aerospace Engineering, or equivalent
• Ability to toggle between strategic thinking and detail, and comfort executing independently in a dynamic, high-pressure environment

Good to Have

• Experience in aerospace, automotive, or heavy industrial manufacturing, or cross-border sourcing under regulatory constraint

Work location: Hoskote, Bangalore (Headquarters)

What We Offer

• Comprehensive health insurance to keep you and your loved ones covered
• Relocation assistance and a daily travel stipend to ease your commute
• Advanced salary credit to support you when you need it

“A driven, passionate team where you’ll have room to grow and thrive - this is more than just a job, it’s a rare opportunity to build something meaningful from the ground up”

Work Schedule:

• In-office role, working alternate Saturdays.

Ready to take off?

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