Jobs and Careers

Senior Staff Commodity Manager, Graphite & Mechanical Components

Menlo Park, United Statesfull_timeVerifiedPosted 14 May 2025

About the role

Company Overview
Mainspring Energy is revolutionizing power generation with the world’s most flexible and adaptable onsite power generator, the Mainspring Linear Generator. Commercial, industrial, and utility leaders are choosing Mainspring over traditional options like engines, turbines, and fuel cells to quickly and reliably deliver local power for EV charging, commercial facilities, data centers, and grid-scale operations. The Mainspring Linear Generator is fuel flexible, ramps up and down to meet demand, and utilizes a flameless technology with near-zero NOx emissions.
Backed by top-tier investors such as Khosla Ventures, Bill Gates, American Electric Power, and Lightrock, Mainspring designs, manufactures and delivers its products to customers across the U.S. today, and we’re quickly scaling for international expansion.
Inspired by our vision of the affordable, reliable, net-zero carbon grid, Mainspring is rapidly expanding within the $816B global electricity equipment market, and we’re hiring the best talent to meet growing customer demand around the globe. We welcome a broad range of backgrounds, experiences, and talents to bring fresh perspectives and ongoing innovation to our customers.
We are looking to build relationships with people who share our values:
Pragmatic Optimism. Building a new category of world-class power generation requires the optimism of ambition and creativity, balanced with practicality to solve problems efficiently. The challenges that arise are opportunities for growth.
Excellence without Ego. We bring expertise and commitment to creating the best customer experience, from sales to deployment and service, just as we apply deep technical rigor to building and delivering world-class products. We strive for excellence and behave as leaders with the humility to acknowledge our challenges, both collectively and as individual contributors.
Proactive Collaboration. The integration and cross-disciplinary nature of Mainspring’s business requires intentionally seeking out others who bring different skills, perspectives, and priorities. Our culture of inclusion and respect extends beyond our team to interactions with our partners and customers.
More information can be found at www.mainspringenergy.com
Mainspring Energy is rapidly scaling production of its breakthrough Linear Generator technology, necessitating a highly experienced and strategic Senior Staff Commodity Manager to lead global sourcing for graphite materials and mechanical components - with a strong emphasis on isostatic impregnated graphite - and select critical mechanical components. This role is essential for developing and executing comprehensive sourcing strategies, managing supplier relationships, and ensuring the procurement of materials that meet stringent technical, quality, and commercial requirements.
The ideal candidate will be accountable for the entire lifecycle of assigned commodities, including supplier identification, technical qualification, contracting, risk mitigation, and performance monitoring. Cross-functional collaboration with engineering, materials science, operations, and quality is essential to meet business objectives and drive continuous improvement.

Responsibilities

Develop and implement sourcing strategies for graphite grades in high temperature sealing applications, balancing cost, quality, capacity and supply continuity.
Identify, qualify, and manage suppliers for graphite and mechanical components. Build strong partnerships and drive performance improvements.
Leverage deep knowledge of graphite properties—such as isostatic molding, fine grain structure, and oxidation resistant impregnation chemistries —to ensure materials meet application demands.
Source suppliers capable of precision machining of graphite components; evaluate capabilities in CNC milling, turning, and tolerance control for brittle materials, including experience with dust management, tooling wear, and dimensional stability in high-temperature applications.
Ensure sourced materials meet technical specs. Support evaluation of failure modes and counterface compatibility for high-performance applications.
Lead pricing and performance negotiations to achieve cost targets. Draft and manage supplier contracts with firm pricing, terms, and delivery SLAs.
Build technical cost models, identify savings opportunities, and mitigate supply risks through alternate sourcing and strategy.
Work with engineering, quality, and operations to align sourcing with business needs and ensure timely execution.
Track market trends and supplier benchmarks. Monitor procurement KPIs and drive corrective actions where needed.