Associate Buyer

About the Role The Associate Buyer provides mid-level professional purchasing support within UC's centralized purchasing shared services function. This role supports day‑to‑day purchasing operations by preparing requisitions and purchase orders, maintaining required documentation, and assisting with issue resolution in accordance with University policies and procedures. What You'll Do

• Support routine operational purchasing activities for goods and services under the direction of both the Buyer and Shared Services Manager.
• Prepare and update requisitions and related purchasing documentation in support of purchase order creation.
• Prepare requisitions for conversion into purchase orders, including ensuring appropriate documentation of sourcing rationale, supplier selection, pricing, and vendor instructions for purchases under established bid thresholds.
• Support the routing of contracts and purchasing documents for review, including identifying business terms or conditions that may require clarification, challenge, or escalation by decentralized departments.
• Operate within a shared services environment where purchasing work is assigned based on workload and capacity and provide backup support across transaction types as needed.
• Assume ownership of at least two defined purchasing work processes, including: responsibility for maintaining current job aids, step-by-step instructions, and reference materials; updating documentation to reflect policy, process, or system changes; and serving as a point of contact for questions related to assigned processes.
• Serve as a designated backup for other Associate Buyers assigned work processes to ensure continuity of operations.
• Support supplier onboarding and maintenance activities What We're Looking For
• Experience with purchasing/procurement operations and supporting requisitions and purchase orders.
• Ability to document and communicate sourcing rationale, supplier selection, pricing, and vendor instructions for purchases under bid thresholds.
• Capacity to route contracts and purchasing documents for review and escalate issues to decentralized departments when needed.
• Experience working in a shared services environment and providing backup across transaction types.
• Strong ownership mentality to manage defined purchasing processes, maintain up-to-date job aids, and serve as a point of contact for questions.
• Ability to support supplier onboarding and maintenance activities.