Contract Manufacturing Lead

About Corintis

Corintis offers innovative microfluidic cooling technologies for AI chips/GPUs and CPUs used in data centres. Working with many of the world's largest tech companies, our solutions improve compute sustainability and tackle the excessive electricity consumption associated with data centre cooling, which consumes more electricity than New York and London combined.

Ranked as the No.1 Engineering startup in Switzerland for 2025, Corintis offers a friendly and team-oriented workplace, bringing together over 105 people from over 35 nationalities to solve the most significant computing challenges of tomorrow. Based on the EPFL Campus in St. Sulpice, we are closely connected to the local ecosystem and are located a few minutes walk from Lake Geneva.

The Role

Corintis is industrializing a new manufacturing technology, and that means putting production lines in place: additive manufacturing lines, automation and handling, process and metrology equipment, test benches and the tooling that runs on them. Some of that equipment we buy ourselves; some is bought by our manufacturing partners to run our process, and we have just as much at stake in what they choose. Each of those decisions carries a long lead time and sits on the critical path of a customer commitment. Today the activity is spread across several people; it needs a single senior owner.

As Advanced Purchaser you support and own industrial equipment sourcing across that network specification with engineering, RFQ, technical and commercial comparison, CAPEX case, contract, and the project through to production acceptance for what we buy; and the technical and commercial review of what our partners buy on our behalf. You also own the direct materials that feed those lines: metal powders, binders, screens and consumables.

You will report to the VP Manufacturing and work daily with Process & Industrialization, Hardware Development, Finance and our Asia supply chain team. This is a hands-on senior individual contributor role with real ownership and visibility.

Key Responsibilities

• Support and own the sourcing of production equipment across our manufacturing network

• Act as Corintis’ commercial and technical counterpart when a manufacturing partner selects equipment for our process

• Build the RFQ packages

• Run the technical and commercial bid comparison on what drives a line's real cost

• Build total cost of ownership models down to a cost per part, and prepare the CAPEX requests that Finance and the founders approve

• Negotiate the equipment contracts

• Run equipment projects from purchase order to acceptance

• Own raw material sourcing

• Own tooling and change parts

• Feed procurement data into planning

Requirements

• 7+ years in purchasing or strategic sourcing in an industrial environment, spent mainly buying for production rather than for offices

• Demonstrated ownership of industrial equipment purchases

• Experience influencing or reviewing equipment decisions made by a subcontractor or contract manufacturer on your company’s behalf

• Working knowledge of the commercial frame around machinery in Europe

• Proven negotiation track record on supplier agreements

• Strong cost analysis

• Comfortable with technical specifications

• Professional working English; French or German is an advantage

• Willingness to travel regularly within Europe and occasionally to Asia

• Experience in a scale-up or early-industrialization environment
  

This Is a Great Fit If You...

• You are motivated by decisions that visibly move a manufacturing ramp forward, not by processing purchase orders

• You want to see the machines you bought running

• You are comfortable building the numbers everyone else then argues about, and defending them

• You want the autonomy and the mandate to structure an area that is still taking shape

This Won't Be the Right Role for You If...

• You are looking for a transactional purchasing role focused on order processing and expediting

• You expect an established procurement organization with categories, tools and processes already in place

• You are not comfortable engaging deeply with technical content and with engineering counterparts

• You prefer working fully remotely, or a corporate environment with fixed processes and long approval cycles