Universal Hydrogen is seeking a Procurement & Inventory Specialist to help scale our rapidly growing team working to decarbonize the aviation industry. This is a rare, yet exciting opportunity to make a lasting impact in a lean Supply Chain team at a well-funded Aerospace startup led by veterans from Google, DARPA, and Airbus. In this newly created role, you will support Universal Hydrogen’s Senior Procurement Manager on company-wide purchasing activities, ensuring our engineering team has the supplies and parts needed to design, test, and produce Universal Hydrogen’s state-of-the-art modular hydrogen capsules and fuel cell powertrain. You will support the upstream supply chain, including vendor management, sourcing, purchasing, logistics, and inventory management. If you’re the type of person who refuses to accept “because that’s how we’ve always done it”, and someone with an “I’ll figure it out” attitude, we want to hear from you!

About the Role

• Process purchase requisitions into purchase orders (POs) for goods and services using procurement software, prepare POs for review and approval on a daily basis
• Communicate with suppliers to obtain product or service information such as cost, lead times, availability of stock, and delivery schedules
• Identify suitable suppliers and vendors for required goods / services
• Basic understanding of commercial terms/conditions and identifying/ negotiating master agreement requirements
• Work with the Finance team to monitor spending on various purchases and to resolve invoice and credit issues
• Monitor and track supplier performance with vendor scorecarding to identify potential issues in the supply chain
• Maintain records related to contracts, leasing, purchasing activities, receipts, costs, and expenditures

About You

• 5+ years of procurement experience in technical goods, preferably in the Aerospace or hardware manufacturing sector
• Post-secondary education
• Strong organizational skills with high attention to detail
• Competence in utilizing computer tools for data analysis and presentation
• Proficient in Google Suite, MS Office applications, with intermediate expertise with Excel
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, comfortable liaising with external parties
• Previous experience purchasing component parts and supplies from international suppliers

About Us

At Universal Hydrogen, our mission is to fuel carbon-free flight and reduce the climate impact of air travel. We are stitching together the end-to-end hydrogen value chain for aviation, both for hydrogen fuel and hydrogen-powered airplanes. We are building a transport and logistics network that moves hydrogen from production facilities to airports over the existing freight infrastructure, eliminating the need for costly new pipelines and storage facilities. Our system utilizes specialized capsules that safely store hydrogen during transit and act as modular fuel tanks that load directly onto aircraft. We are also developing powertrain conversion kits to retrofit existing airplanes and enable new airplanes to fly on hydrogen. Founded by former executives from Airbus, United Technologies, Google, and DARPA, and backed by investors such as Playground Global, Tencent, Toyota, GE, JetBlue, and Airbus, we are convinced that hydrogen is the best and only scalable solution to truly decarbonize aviation, and we want to bring it to market decades sooner—by 2025.

We strive for a workplace that is open, friendly, and fun, while valuing focus, urgency, camaraderie, and maverick behavior in accomplishing our mission. We recognize that people have a diverse set of preferences for work conditions and hours that optimize their overall productivity and wellness, and both our cloud-based IT setup and flexible work policy reflect this. However, because we are building physical products, most roles will require working at our facility at Hawthorne Airport in Los Angeles or at Toulouse-Blagnac Airport in Toulouse most of the time.

Our compensation and benefits package promotes transparency, equitability, and long-term employee well-being, while rewarding individual and team performance. This includes a significant variable pay component in the cash compensation, equity participation for all employees, 100% coverage of healthcare costs, and dog-friendly offices. As a young company, we are continually expanding our benefits, striving to provide our employees with the support they need to be their best both in and outside of the office. In the next few months, we are rolling out childcare support, catered meals, green mobility support, and private pilot (PPL) training—and we’re always open to feedback on what’s most important to you!

We know that no two candidates are the same, and we want to give you the opportunity to present yourself in the best way possible. Don’t hesitate to let us know how we can support a great recruitment process for you—whether that includes off-hours interview scheduling, captioning/transcription services, or other accommodations. We value diversity in all its forms, and encourage people from all backgrounds to apply, especially if you share in our mission to decarbonize air travel.

Please note that for the health and safety of our employees, we require all employees to provide proof of up-to-date COVID-19 vaccinations as recommended by the CDC (or a valid exemption).