Operations
Lambda, The Superintelligence Cloud, is a leader in AI cloud infrastructure serving tens of thousands of customers. Our customers range from AI researchers to enterprises and hyperscalers. Lambda's mission is to make compute as ubiquitous as electricity and give everyone the power of superintelligence. One person, one GPU.
If you'd like to build the world's best AI cloud, join us.
Note: This position requires presence in our San Francisco or San Jose office location 4 days per week; Lambda's designated work from home day is currently Tuesday.
About the Role
We are seeking experienced Demand & Supply Planning Managers to help build a brand-new planning function for Lambda's data center hardware, as part of Lambda's Supply Chain team, which makes sure the right systems, racks, and networking equipment are in the right place at the right time to power our rapidly growing AI cloud footprint.
You will own the planning process that connects what our customers and data center deployments need with what our ODM/OEM partners and component suppliers can deliver: building and maintaining demand forecasts, translating them into supply and build plans, balancing capacity and inventory against deployment schedules, and surfacing constraints early enough for the business to act on them.
The ideal candidate has planned complex, long-lead-time hardware in a high-growth environment. You are comfortable pressure-testing a forecast, building a supply plan from the bill of materials up, running a rigorous S&OP cycle, and telling leadership clearly where the risks are and what trade-offs are on the table, while moving fluidly between strategic planning and the details that make or break a deployment.
Because this is a net-new team, you will have a real hand in defining how planning works at Lambda: the processes, the cadence, the metrics, and the tools. You will work closely with Sourcing (ODM/OEM), Commodity Management, Operations and Logistics, Data Center Engineering, Finance, and Go-to-Market to bring capacity online on schedule.
What You'll Do
Demand Planning & Forecasting
- Own the demand forecast for your assigned portfolio, translating data center deployment plans, customer commitments, and capacity roadmaps into a unit-level, time-phased view of what we need and when.
- Build and maintain forecast models, assumptions, and scenarios (base, upside, downside), and track forecast accuracy and bias over time.
- Partner with Go-to-Market, Project Management, Finance, and Data Center Engineering to keep the demand signal current as customer commitments, cluster designs, and site readiness change.
- Establish clear forecast input ownership, cadence, and change-control so that upstream changes are visible and acted on quickly.
Supply Planning & Capacity Alignment
- Convert demand into supply and build plans for finished systems, racks, and networking equipment, including ODM/OEM build slots, integration capacity, and delivery schedules.
- Align partner manufacturing capacity and lead times with the demand forecast, and drive resolution when supply and demand do not match.
- Work with Commodity Management to understand component availability and allocation (accelerators, memory, storage, optics, power, cooling) and reflect those constraints in the supply plan.
- Lead execution timing across the supply chain, setting and driving the schedule so that material procurement is placed and delivered on time to support build and deployment commitments.
- Plan for new platform introductions and transitions, coordinating build schedules, ramp timing, and cutover so that new and legacy platforms are supplied without gaps or excess.
- Coordinate with Operations and Logistics on inbound flow, staging, and delivery so that supply lands when data centers are ready to receive it, either through direct ship or hub-spoke delivery models.
Integrated Planning (S&OP)
- Run or contribute to the Sales & Operations Planning cycle for infrastructure: demand review, supply review, and executive alignment on trade-offs.
- Produce clear, decision-ready views of supply versus demand, gaps, risks, and recommended actions for leadership.
- Drive consensus across functions, and escalate constraints with options and a recommendation, not just a problem statement.
- Keep the plan of record accurate, and make plan changes and their downstream impacts transparent.
Inventory & Working Capital
- Leverage analytical models to define and manage inventory targets, buffer strategies, and safety stock for long-lead and critical items, balancing deployment risk against capital and obsolescence exposure.
- Monitor on-hand, in-transit, and committed inventory, and flag excess, shortage, and aging exposure early.
Supply Risk & Resilience
Identify, quantify, and help mitigate risks to deployment schedules, including:
- Lead-time changes and long-lead component exposure
- Manufacturing capacity constraints and build slot risk
- Component allocation and shortages
- Single points of failure across partners, sites, and regions
- Tariff, trade compliance, and geopolitical impacts on flow and timing
- Demand volatility and forecast error
- Build contingency and recovery plans, and run scenario analysis so leadership can see the options before a constraint becomes a delay.
Planning Processes, Data & Tools
- Help design and stand up the planning processes, cadence, and governance for a new team.
- Define and report the metrics that matter, such as forecast accuracy, plan adherence, days of supply, inventory turns, on-time delivery, and shortage exposure.
- Build the data foundation and reporting needed to plan at scale, and contribute to selecting and implementing planning systems and automation.
- Document processes and playbooks so the function scales as Lambda grows.
Cross-Functional Partnership
- Partner with Sourcing (ODM/OEM) so commercial commitments, capacity reservations, and ramp terms line up with the plan.
- Partner with Com