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Salary: USD 162,900 - 181,000 / annual
Pendulum Therapeutics is a venture-backed biotech company revolutionizing health through microbiome science. The company has developed proprietary probiotic pipelines, a discovery platform for novel bacterial strains, and world-leading manufacturing technology for anaerobic bacterial production at scale. Pendulum's medical probiotics have transformed the consumer probiotics market and earned a spot on Forbes' "Next Billion Dollar Startups" list.
You will own the commercial and operational performance of Pendulum's contract manufacturing network, managing partners responsible for raw material and packaging procurement, powder blending, encapsulation, bottling, labeling, cartoning, and finished-goods preparation. This role combines strategic sourcing discipline with practical manufacturing operations expertise.
Key responsibilities include:
**Contract Manufacturing Strategy & Commercial Ownership**: Develop and execute supplier network strategy balancing capability, quality, capacity, service, cost, speed, and business continuity. Lead supplier identification, diligence, selection, qualification, contracting, and ongoing commercial management. Negotiate pricing, terms, capacity commitments, lead times, and long-term agreements. Build contingency plans and capacity pathways to support growth and reduce concentration risk.
**Should-Cost & Cost Improvement**: Build transparent should-cost models separating raw material and packaging pass-throughs from labor, overhead, equipment, yield loss, scrap, testing, freight, and supplier margin. Use open-book costing, market benchmarks, and on-site observations to deliver best-in-class COGS. Create fact-based negotiation strategies and deliver measurable savings without compromising quality or service. Partner with Finance and Supply Planning on forecasting and capacity scenarios.
**Manufacturing Operations & Continuous Improvement**: Understand supplier facility operations including material flow, production scheduling, staffing, equipment constraints, line speeds, yields, changeovers, maintenance, and quality holds. Map end-to-end processes and identify bottlenecks, handoff failures, and cost/lead-time variation sources. Apply industrial engineering fundamentals such as cycle-time analysis, capacity modeling, line balancing, labor-content analysis, value-stream mapping, and constraint management. Develop joint improvement roadmaps with suppliers and track implementation. Spend time on production floors to validate assumptions and build practical solutions.
**Supplier Relationship & Performance Management**: Serve as primary commercial relationship owner for assigned contract manufacturers, building productive relationships from executive teams to plant-level operations. Establish clear expectations, governance, scorecards, and business reviews covering quality, delivery, cost, responsiveness, inventory, capacity, and continuous improvement. Identify performance gaps early, align suppliers on root causes and corrective actions, and escalate decisively when commitments are at risk.
**Cross-Functional Execution**: Partner with Quality, Regulatory, Product, R&D, Supply Planning, Packaging, Logistics, and Finance. Lead sourcing and supplier-readiness workstreams for product launches, site transfers, packaging changes, and scale-ups. Communicate risks, tradeoffs, and recovery plans to cross-functional teams and senior leadership. Create tools, operating rhythms, and decision frameworks to improve supplier visibility and accountability.
The role is hybrid based in San Francisco with expectations of 2–3 days per week in office. Regular travel (20–30%) to contract manufacturing sites and supplier locations, with potential increases during launches, transfers, negotiations, or performance-recovery work.
**Requirements**
- Bachelor's degree in Supply Chain, Engineering, Business, Operations, or related field, or equivalent experience
- 8+ years of experience in strategic sourcing, contract manufacturing, supplier management, manufacturing operations, or supply chain within a manufacturing environment
- Experience managing contract manufacturers in nutraceuticals, food and beverage, pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, medical devices, cosmetics, electronics, or equivalent industry
- Demonstrated experience leading complex supplier negotiations and managing senior-level commercial relationships
- Strong should-cost capability, including ability to deconstruct conversion costs, assess cost drivers, evaluate supplier margins, and identify negotiation and productivity opportunities
- Working knowledge of manufacturing operations and industrial engineering fundamentals, including process mapping, labor and capacity analysis, line balancing, bottleneck identification, throughput, yield, and changeover optimization
- Strong analytical skills and advanced proficiency with Google Sheets and/or Microsoft Excel; experience with NetSuite or another ERP system preferred
- Go-getter with strong bias for action; comfortable moving between executive negotiations, analytical cost work, and hands-on problem solving on manufacturing floors
- Strong commercial judgment paired with operational curiosity and technical depth to ask the right questions
- Ability to create structure, priorities, and clear action plans in fast-moving and ambiguous situations
- Clear, direct, and proactive communication with supplier executives, plant teams, technical stakeholders, and internal leadership
- High ownership, sound judgment, and ability to independently drive multiple complex workstreams to completion
- Courage to challenge convention and be a first mover; insatiable curiosity and initiative in finding innovative and sustainable solutions
- Dedicated to rigor and accountability; forthright with data; ethical and transparent with customers and colleagues
