Sourcing Manager, Network Planning & Acquisition

ABOUT THE TEAM

F5's Infrastructure Capacity Engineering team is responsible for the planning, sourcing, and delivery of network, compute, security, and data center capacity across F5’s global SaaS footprint. This includes an active data center expansion spanning multiple metro deployments worldwide. The team sits at the intersection of engineering, procurement, finance, and legal; translating capacity forecasts into real infrastructure on the ground.

ABOUT THE ROLE

The Strategic Sourcing Manager – Network Planning and Acquisition brings both commercial depth and cross-functional instincts to operate effectively at the intersection of network strategy and global infrastructure delivery. You perform at your best under pressure, and exhibit poise, grace, and competence. You can balance sourcing strategy, tactics and are always several chess moves ahead of the status quo. You can influence to the net benefit of F5, Infrastructure Engineering and operate with extreme independence.

In this role, you will own the alignment between F5's network sourcing strategy and its global infrastructure connectivity and data center selection needs, ensuring the right data center, fiber, carrier services, and interconnect capacity are secured at the right time, in the right markets, to support a global infrastructure footprint that is actively growing.

This is a cross-functional role by design. You'll work directly with Supply Chain, Network Engineering, Infrastructure Operations, Finance, Product, and Procurement as the connective layer that turns capacity signals into sourcing decisions and supply constraints into acquisition strategies. The job is ensuring F5's network infrastructure can deliver the performance its customers depend on.

Requirements

• 8+ years of experience in strategic sourcing, network procurement, or infrastructure acquisition, with a track record of owning commercial relationships and sourcing functions end-to-end

• Demonstrated expertise in fiber and carrier sourcing at scale, including hands-on experience structuring dark fiber IRUs, lit service agreements, IP transit contracts, and peering arrangements across large, multi-site, multi-market environments

• Hyperscale, carrier, or large enterprise background: You've done this at a company where network infrastructure runs on a scale and sourcing decisions carry real financial and operational weight

• Commercial and technical depth across network infrastructure: You understand fiber, transport, and carrier services at a level that lets you reason about route diversity, fiber specifications, transport architectures, capacity pricing models, and what those choices mean for network economics and sourcing strategy

• Broad infrastructure literacy: You don't need to be a network engineer, but you need to understand how routing, traffic engineering, peering policy, data center connectivity, and physical infrastructure constraints interact

• Strong analytical and commercial modeling skills: Proficiency in tools and methods for building TCO models, benchmarking carrier pricing, and evaluating build vs. buy decisions. The tool matters less than the rigor — but the output must be actionable and defensible, not a static slide deck

• Operational credibility: You've been close enough to live network infrastructure to understand what capacity constraints, carrier SLA failures, and route outages mean in practice and how to translate that operational reality into sourcing decisions that protect service delivery

• Clear, executive-ready communication: You can write a crisp sourcing briefing, present it to a VP, defend your assumptions, and translate complex network acquisition trade-offs into the language of business risk, cost, and investment

• Proficiency with network topology and planning tools, including KMZ/GIS tools, route mapping platforms, and fiber management systems

• Solid knowledge of network performance and capacity metrics — traffic volumes, port utilization, transit ratios, latency, and diversity requirements

• Experience with demand forecasting and capacity-driven sourcing, including translating traffic growth projections and infrastructure expansion plans into procurement timelines and supply strategies

• What You'll Bring

• Required Qualifications

• 8+ years of experience in strategic sourcing, network procurement, or infrastructure acquisition, with a track record of owning commercial relationships and sourcing functions end-to-end

• Demonstrated expertise in fiber and carrier sourcing at scale, including hands-on experience structuring dark fiber IRUs, lit service agreements, IP transit contracts, and peering arrangements across large, multi-site, multi-market environments

• Hyperscale, carrier, or large enterprise background: You've done this at a company where network infrastructure runs on a scale and sourcing decisions carry real financial and operational weight

• Commercial and technical depth across network infrastructure: You understand fiber, transport, and carrier services at a level that lets you reason about route diversity, fiber specifications, transport architectures, capacity pricing models, and what those choices mean for network economics and sourcing strategy

• Broad infrastructure literacy: You don't need to be a network engineer, but you need to understand how routing, traffic engineering, peering policy, data center connectivity, and physical infrastructure constraints interact

• Strong analytical and commercial modeling skills: Proficiency in tools and methods for building TCO models, benchmarking carrier pricing, and evaluating build vs. buy decisions. The tool matters less than the rigor — but the output must be actionable and defensible, not a static slide deck

• Operational credibility: You've been close enough to live network infrastructure to understand what capacity constraints, carrier SLA failures, and route outages mean in practice and how to translate that operational reality into sourcing decisions that protect service delivery

• Clear, executive-ready communication: You can write a crisp sourcing briefing, present it to a VP, defend your assumptions, and translate complex network acquisition trade-offs into the language of business risk, cost, and investment

• Proficiency with network topology and planning tools, including KMZ/GIS tools, route mapping platforms, and fiber management systems

• Solid knowledge of network performance and capacity metrics — traffic volumes, port utilization, transit ratios, latency, and diversity requirements

• Experience with demand forecasting and capacity-driven sourcing, including translating traffic growth projections and infrastructure expansion plans into procurement timelines and supply strategies

• The Job Description is intended to be a general representation of the responsibilities and requirements of the job. However, the description may not be all-inclusive, and