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Category Buyer

Posted 23 Mar 2024
Work experience
2 to 5 years
Full-time / part-time
Full-time
Job function
Degree level
Required language
English (Fluent)

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Working at Lightyear is a unique experience. You get the opportunity to work for a company with a pure and meaningful mission. A mission that will make a positive and lasting impact on future generations.

What will you do as a Category Buyer at Lightyear?

As a Category Buyer you’ll become part of our Procurement team. While our engineers make sure we’re able to engineer our required technology, it’s up to this team to make sure we realize delivery through collaboration with suppliers and building strong relationships with partners.

While you’ll be coached by our VP Strategic Sourcing & Procurement you become part of a small-scaled team including Category Managers, Operational Buyers and a Procurement Assistant. Primarily, it’s your responsibility to maintain an adequate quantity of essential materials or services required for the business to operate.

This will result in managing stock inventories, creating extensive and detailed requirements specifications for the required products/services, tendering and maintaining (potential) suppliers relationships. Besides, you’ll evaluate competing bids and negotiate on pricing.

Additionally, it’s essential to carry out sourcing strategies as set by the Category Manager you intensively work with. You’ll co-identify and co-select suitable partners and suppliers for the materials/services within the scope of our category manager.

To give you an idea more staccato, we’d like to refer to the bullets displayed below;

  • You’ll translate projects needs to supply chain
  • You will act as an expert in the area of your responsibility both commercially and market wise
  • You understand technical feasibility of products, materials and processes within your portfolio
  • You’ll steer and execute supplier selection processes and manage all stakeholders
  • You’ll administratively support the Supplier Selection process and add value throughout contracting and embedding new partners

We’re aware of the fact that just some staccato bullets are slightly lame. That’s why we’d like to give you some insights on what your job will look like. After your coffee to start your day, you efficiently deal with some mails regarding the project, mainly from and to partners about deliverables, timelines and technical discussions. You attend the stand up meeting of the project (sprint) and report the result of last days efforts in regard to roadblocks for the team irt. ’your’ product portfolio. Then you finalise your one-pager presentation for tomorrow’s stand up meeting in which you will inform the team about the outcome of your negotiation and deal you have finalised including a time plan for the next steps. Before lunch you catch up with one of the lead engineers to discuss the outcome of a recent technical discussion and check if your intervention is needed. There might have been openings for commercial consequences in the project due to this. Just after lunch you sit down for the appointment with yourself and consume your blocked agenda to investigate 2 new potential suppliers which were recently introduced. You investigate a recent article which exposed new nearby future technologies and try to get in contact with the company mentioned. At the end of the day, you replan some appointments, plan your future trip in 2 weeks to Italy and deal with your last inbox items and leave late afternoon.

Now, let’s see if you have what it takes to fulfill this exciting role!

What do we expect from a Category Buyer?

In order to succeed in the dynamic world of Lightyear; pro-activity, professionalism, communication and adaptability are crucial. We are looking for someone with an ambitious attitude who learns from the past but who is especially open to transforming new developments or ideas into the ‘tried and tested’ of the future! You thrive on working team based, but working independently every now and then shouldn’t be an issue.. You are flexible and can work under pressure. Furthermore, we are looking for someone with:

  • At least a Bachelor’s degree within a relevant field
  • Strong passion with high-end products and technology
  • 2-5 years of relevant experience
  • The ability to build trustworthy, strong relations with external partners
  • The capability to translate mid term strategic plans for the (sub) system/parts you are responsible for
  • Excellent negotiation skills
  • Fluent in English
  • The skills to balance out technical and commercial skills

On a personal level you can relate to the following characteristics; you’re able to work in multidisciplinary teams and you’re someone who starts & finishes projects. You’re result driven and relation minded.

What can you expect from Lightyear?

In addition to a challenging role we also offer:

  • A high degree of freedom and independence in your role
  • A role within a multidisciplinary team consisting of highly motivated, inquisitive and talented people with a broad diversity of experience
  • A role at one of the fastest growing technical companies in the Netherlands with tremendous potential
  • 40 vacation days per year
  • An interesting and balanced pension through Zwitserleven that is in line with the mission of Lightyear
  • The ability to participate via shares and to be involved in the growth and success of Lightyear
  • In addition to a dynamic working environment, there is time for relaxation during our already epic Friday afternoon drinks

At Lightyear we are building an electric car that charges itself. From our experience at Solar Team Eindhoven, we know this is only possible starting from scratch. At Lightyear we bring together a multidisciplinary team of highly motivated engineers, designers, and visionaries to challenge the status quo. Write the story with us!

Automotive
Helmond
Active in 10 countries
200 employees
70% men - 30% women
Average age is 35 years

What employees are saying

Manuel Ribeiro

Software Engineer

Manuel Ribeiro

"Lightyear is an exceptional team that puts together people from all over the world with the same goal of creating a meaningful positive impact in our society. I felt welcome from the very first day and working with such motivated engineers gives me the energy I need to do my best every day."

Sapfo Tsoutsou

Group Lead - Thermal Engineering

Sapfo Tsoutsou

"Lightyear is een geweldig bedrijf om voor te werken. Het voelt voor mij meer als familie dan een werkgever. Klinkt misschien een beetje heftig, maar het is zo. Je maakt makkelijk vrienden op werk: iedereen is vriendelijk, behulpzaam en zo gemotiveerd om echt een verschil te maken in de wereld.”