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Finance
Job Details
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Job Title: Senior Manager, Vendor Engagement & Reliability (IC) Location: Chicago, IL
**About the Team **
The Vendor Engagement & Reliability (VER) team is a centralized function within Digital Enterprise Technology (DET) that ensures external technology and service partners deliver reliable, secure, and value-aligned outcomes. Operating as a Strategic Intelligence Hub, VER applies commercial discipline, technical reliability, and financial intelligence to fuel innovation and protect the integrity of DET's managed portfolio. FinOps discipline runs as a process lens across all VER activity — embedded in how every team member operates, not siloed to a single function.
About the Role
The Senior Manager, Vendor Engagement & Reliability is an individual contributor role operating at a senior level within the VER function. The ideal candidate is comfortable at the intersection of strategic engagement management and operational execution, someone who can analyze engagement health, identify performance risk, contribute to commercial awareness, and translate complex vendor data into clear recommendations for senior stakeholders. This role operates within a defined VER function with established leadership, frameworks, and an operating model. The Senior Manager brings high-level execution and analytical depth to Director-led decisions, contributing rigorous analysis, engagement oversight, and cross-functional coordination without carrying organizational ownership. The ideal candidate is energized by doing excellent, high-impact work within a high-performing team, not by building or running a function independently.
How You'll Know You're Succeeding Success in this role looks like being the analytical and execution engine behind a Director-led function. You will produce the work that drives VER decisions — the engagement health analysis, the SLA performance narrative, the spend intelligence, the QBR preparation — and you will do it with precision and consistency.
You will work closely with the VER team, bringing findings, flagging risks, and contributing recommendations. This role sits at the intersection of strategic thinking and operational precision — equal parts analyst, relationship steward, and financial conscience. Your contribution is the quality, accuracy, and depth of the work that informs decisions.
The strongest candidates for this role are senior practitioners who take pride in doing excellent work within a high-performing team — not candidates seeking to independently own or lead a function. If you are energized by vendor engagement complexity, comfortable with ambiguity, and excited about contributing to a function that is building something new, this role is built for you.
Your Impact - Responsibilities
**Engagement Strategy & Terms Alignment **
- Manage active vendor engagements across the DET portfolio — tracking terms, performance commitments, and renewal timelines with precision
- Support renewal positioning and engagement terms alignment across mid-level and specialized partner engagements, in close coordination with the Director and Sourcing
- Apply commercial awareness to evaluate engagement health — surfacing risks, scope concerns, and misalignments before they escalate to the Director
- Contribute to M&A engagement transition support, helping integrate inherited vendor relationships into the VER operating model
- Maintain engagement status documentation in the VER Intelligence Hub, ensuring the Director and leadership always have an accurate, current view of portfolio health
**Ecosystem Reliability & Performance **
- Track and report on SLA performance across active engagements — surfacing trends, outliers, and improvement opportunities through the VER Health Monitor
- Support QBR preparation and engagement health narrative, translating raw performance data into clear, executive-ready analysis for Director review
- Identify reliability risks within the third-party ecosystem and bring findings to the Director with recommended resolution approaches
- Monitor contract compliance and engagement terms adherence, flagging deviations and working with stakeholders to address gaps in coordination with the Director
- Contribute to the development and maintenance of engagement health scorecards that support data-driven vendor accountability
**Spend Intelligence & Financial Awareness **
- Apply FinOps discipline as a core lens across all engagement work — contributing to portfolio spend analysis, savings tracking, and cost optimization insights
- Support forecast governance by maintaining accuracy of engagement-level spend data and flagging forecast variances
- Collaborate with Finance and DET stakeholders to ensure engagement spend is visible, categorized, and aligned to DET's fiscal strategy
- Contribute to regular reporting on vendor performance, spend trends, and value realization for senior and executive leadership
- Identify cost optimization opportunities within active engagements and bring data-backed recommendations for evaluation and action
**Cross-functional Collaboration & Stakeholder Engagement **
- Operate as a cross-functional partner across DET, Finance, Legal, and Sourcing — representing VER's interests and engagement model in every interaction
- Support the VER intake process for new SOW and engagement requests, providing analysis and documentation to inform high-level evaluation and decision-making
- Contribute to stakeholder readiness by helping business partners understand how to engage VER, what we assess, and what the pre-engagement process entails
- Maintain proficiency in the VER Intelligence Hub — navigating, updating, and presenting from it confidently as VER's primary operating platform
Minimum Qualifications
- Bachelor's degree in Business, Information Systems, Supply Chain, Computer Science, or Finance or equivalent experience
- 10+ years in vendor management, technology operations, FinOps, or related fields within a high-growth environment
- 8+ years as senior individual contributor role with cross-functional influence
- Demonstrated experience managing large, complex vendor portfolios (multi-million dollar spend)
- Proven track record of leading end-to-end contract negotiations and SOW management
- Comfort operating in a fast-moving, high-ambiguity environment where frameworks are evolving and judgment is required
Technical & Domain Knowledge
- Familiarity with cloud infrastructure and SaaS procurement models
- Working knowledge of FinOps principles and consumption-based cost management
- Understanding of security, compliance, and risk frameworks within a vendor ecosystem
- Experience with vendor performance management tools and governance frameworks
Business & Financial Acumen
- Ability to build and manage multi-year cost-avoidance and optimization roadmaps
- Experience translating technical spend into business outcomes for executive audiences
- Strong understanding of total cost of ownership (TCO) modeling
Communication & Influence
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills with the ability to present to senior leadership (VP+/ELT level)
- Proven ability to drive alignment across Organizations without direct authority
- Strong commercial negotiation, contract management, and vendor governance expertise
- Proven ability to influence senior business and technology leaders without direct authority
Preferred Qualifications
- Experience in SaaS, cloud, or large-scale enterprise environments
- Familiarity with FinOps principles, consumption-based pricing models, and financial strategy for technical portfolios
- Experience partnering cross-functionally with Legal, Finance, Security, and Enterprise Sourcing teams
*LI-Y
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In the United States, compensation offered will be determined by factors such as location, job level, job-related knowledge, skills, and experience. Certain roles may be eligible for incentive compensation, equity, and benefits. Salesforce offers a variety of benefits to help you live well including: time off programs, medical, dental, vision, mental health support, paid parental leave, life and disability insurance, 401(k), and an employee stock purchasing program. More details about company benefits can be found at the following link: https://www.salesforcebenefits.com.
At Salesforce, we believe in equitable compensation practices that reflect the dynamic nature of labor markets across various regions. The typical base salary range for this position is $143,400 - $216,900 annually. The range represents base salary only, and does not include company bonus, incentive for sales roles, equity or benefits, as applicable.