Compute Strategy & Operations Lead
Modal · Not provided by source
MeritLog read this listing from Modal's Ashby job board and last checked it on September 12, 2026.
Source: the employer's Ashby job board. Open the original listing for current details.
Job details
- Work model
- Not provided by source
- Salary
- $200K - $300K
- Location
- New York
- Company website
- modal.com
Hiring context
How this role compares at Modal
Modal has 31 live roles in MeritLog’s catalog across 6 job families, and 4 of them are in operations. 28 of those listings publish a pay range, a disclosure rate of 90%.
This role's posted range of $200K - $300K sits above 65% of the 26 other Modal roles quoted over the same currency and period.
Modal concentrates this hiring in:
Counted across the job boards MeritLog tracks, at the time this page was served. Pay comparisons use only listings that publish a complete range in the same currency and period.
What the role asks for
What you'd do
- Own end-to-end procurement of GPU and CPU capacity across hyperscalers, neoclouds, and datacenter operators
- Build and maintain a strong pipeline of supplier relationships
- Evaluate supply options on price, availability, hardware specs, networking capabilities, and SLA terms
- Negotiate and close contracts: reserved capacity agreements, spot arrangements, MSAs, DPAs, and order forms
- Work closely with our engineering teams to translate technical requirements into procurement specs
- Track market pricing, availability trends, and supplier dynamics, and serve as a trusted advisor to leadership on infrastructure procurement decisions
What they're asking for
- Fluency in the AI infrastructure landscape: hyperscalers, neoclouds, and the broader GPU supply marketSkill
- Technical understanding of what you're buying: GPU architectures (NVIDIA H100/H200/B200, etc.), networking (InfiniBand vs. RoCE, fabric topology), and SLA structuresSkill
- Strong commercial instincts. You know how to find leverage, structure a deal, and close itSkill
- Ability to work cross-functionally with finance and engineering teams on commercial terms and technical requirementsSkill
Parsed by MeritLog from the employer’s own posting. The full description follows below.
Job description
ABOUT US: AI needs a new infrastructure layer. We're building it at Modal. Every era of computing brought new workloads that previous infrastructure couldn't support: mainframes, databases, and the cloud. Each time, the company that rebuilt the layer underneath defined the decade. AI is no different, except it touches everything instead of one slice, and the window to build the layer underneath it is open right now. Our customers include category-defining companies like Lovable https://modal.com/blog/lovable-case-study, Ramp https://modal.com/blog/how-ramp-built-a-full-context-background-coding-agent-on-modal, Cognition, DoorDash, and Suno. They rely on Modal for instant GPU access, sub-second container starts, and native storage, so it's simple to serve low-latency inference, fine-tune models, and access production-ready sandboxes at scale. We recently raised a $355M Series C https://modal.com/blog/modal-series-c at a $4.65B valuation, led by General Catalyst and Redpoint Ventures. We've crossed $300M+ ARR and grown fivefold since September. Our team includes creators of popular open-source projects (e.g.,Seaborn https://github.com/mwaskom/seaborn,Luigi https://github.com/spotify/luigi), academic researchers, international olympiad medalists, and experienced engineering and product leaders with decades of experience. THE ROLE: We're hiring a Compute Strategy and Operations lead to own how Modal plans for and acquires GPU and CPU capacity. You'll size our infrastructure needs ahead of demand, source supply across hyperscalers, neoclouds, and datacenter operators, and negotiate and close the contracts to secure it. The compute you secure directly determines what Modal can sell and build. In this role, you will: - Own end-to-end procurement of GPU and CPU capacity across hyperscalers, neoclouds, and datacenter operators - Build and maintain a strong pipeline of supplier relationships - Evaluate supply options on price, availability, hardware specs, networking capabilities, and SLA terms - Negotiate and close contracts: reserved capacity agreements, spot arrangements, MSAs, DPAs, and order forms - Work closely with our engineering teams to translate technical requirements into procurement specs - Track market pricing, availability trends, and supplier dynamics, and serve as a trusted advisor to leadership on infrastructure procurement decisions REQUIREMENTS: - Fluency in the AI infrastructure landscape: hyperscalers, neoclouds, and the broader GPU supply market - Technical understanding of what you're buying: GPU architectures (NVIDIA H100/H200/B200, etc.), networking (InfiniBand vs. RoCE, fabric topology), and SLA structures - Strong commercial instincts. You know how to find leverage, structure a deal, and close it - Ability to work cross-functionally with finance and engineering teams on commercial terms and technical requirements
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