About the role
About Pilgrim
Pilgrim is building America’s biology prime - engineering, manufacturing, and deploying advanced biotechnology for defense and national security. Our primary platform, ARGUS, is a fully autonomous system for detecting biological threats in near real time, from naturally occurring pathogens to engineered agents.
We engineer hardware for biology, turning breakthrough science into fielded capabilities. Based in Redwood City, our team brings together mechanical and electrical engineering, chemistry, and biology under one roof to deliver critical technologies to the people who need them.
Pilgrim has raised over $30 million to date and is backed by Peter Thiel, Brian Armstrong, Fred Ehrsam, Dylan Field, and Bryan Johnson, alongside Buckley Ventures, Conviction, Cantos, and others.
About the Role
As a Supply Chain Manager at Pilgrim, you’ll own sourcing, purchasing, inventory, and logistics from early prototypes through production. You’ll select suppliers, negotiate pricing and lead times, and manage orders from quote through delivery. You’ll follow up relentlessly and hold suppliers accountable for cost, quality, and delivery so experiments, builds, and deployments stay on schedule.
Responsibilities
- Build and manage a supplier base that supports prototype development through production, qualifying partners for technical capability, quality, capacity, and delivery.
- Lead commercial negotiations, securing pricing, lead times, capacity commitments, and terms that support Pilgrim’s development and production plans.
- Own material planning, translating bills of materials, engineering changes, and build schedules into purchase commitments and inventory requirements.
- Drive orders from quote through delivery; follow up relentlessly, expedite urgent purchases, and escalate directly with supplier leadership when commitments slip.
- Manage supplier performance against cost, quality, and delivery commitments; resolve nonconforming material and recurring production or fulfillment failures.
- Identify supply risks early and work with engineers on alternative components, suppliers, or design changes to protect cost and schedule targets.
- Establish purchasing, inventory, and logistics processes that maintain material availability, revision control, and traceability as production scales.
Qualifications
- Track record owning sourcing and supply chain execution for hardware development, manufacturing, or laboratory operations.
- Demonstrated results negotiating supplier pricing, lead times, capacity, and commercial terms.
- Ability to work from bills of materials, technical specifications, and build schedules, including changes to parts and revisions.
- A record of resolving material shortages, supplier failures, or delayed deliveries under compressed timelines.
- Experience establishing purchasing, inventory, or material-planning processes and using ERP or related systems to manage them.
- Ability to evaluate supplier capability and capacity, identify single-source risks, and develop alternate supply options.
Preferred
- Experience supporting new product introduction and production ramps; sourcing custom mechanical parts, electronics, fluidic components, or laboratory supplies; or managing supply chains for defense, aerospace, or scientific instrumentation.
Pilgrim is an equal opportunity employer. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law. Certain positions require access to export-controlled information and are limited to U.S. Persons as defined by applicable export control regulations.