A Day in the Life of a Technology Sourcing Manager at Netflix
A Technology Sourcing Manager at Netflix juggles 20-30 deals simultaneously, constantly communicating and negotiating with internal stakeholders and vendors; this role demands strong people skills, as Nicole highlights, "it's all about people skills...how do you get people to trust you," while simultaneously navigating complex financial negotiations and presenting multi-million dollar deals to executive leadership.
Negotiation, Communication, Problem-Solving, Executive Leadership, Financial Analysis
Advizer Information
Name
Job Title
Company
Undergrad
Grad Programs
Majors
Industries
Job Functions
Traits
Nicole Panzovski
Technology Sourcing Manager
Netflix
UCLA 2016
UCLA Anderson MBA
Economics
Arts, Entertainment & Media, Technology
Operations and Project Management
Honors Student, Scholarship Recipient, Worked 20+ Hours in School
Video Highlights
1. A large portion of the job involves negotiation and communication skills. Nicole emphasizes the importance of these soft skills in building trust with vendors and stakeholders while also negotiating deals.
2. The role requires managing numerous deals simultaneously (20-30 at a time), demanding strong organizational and time-management skills.
3. Strategic sourcing managers at Netflix present significant deals (tens of millions of dollars) to executive leadership, requiring strong presentation and communication skills to justify the investment and negotiated terms.
Transcript
What does the day in the life of a strategic sourcing manager look like?
Moving into the tactical, there are a lot of emails that go on. I'm working with anywhere from 20 to 30 deals at any given time.
A lot of the time, I'm meeting with my stakeholders at Netflix internally to chat through what their problems are, what they're looking to do, and if they're ready to move forward. Then, I take that information back to the technology company or vendor.
I communicate where we're at and where we need to be in order to sign a deal. A lot of my life is pretty much negotiating and communicating with people.
This is why my initial internships, although not related to strategic sourcing, impacted my current role. It's all about people skills, and it sounds soft, but it's about how you talk with people, how you get them to trust you, and how you get vendors to trust you.
I also need to have a backbone. I want to be a partner and be helpful, but at the same time, I'm negotiating a deal, which means we're talking numbers, dollars, and cents, and that always gets a little bit touchy.
A lot of my work relies on communicating via email and in person. I negotiate face-to-face, meeting with people to hash out deals, which is extremely challenging and fun at the same time.
A lot of the work I do has to be reported back to our CFO or financial team. Once a deal is done, I create decks and present to our executive leadership, especially if we've signed contracts worth tens of millions of dollars.
This information needs to be communicated to our team. We sit in front of an executive panel and explain why we bought something, the terms of the deal, what we negotiated, the problem it's going to solve, and why we need the investment. We are constantly in meetings to get people to understand why we made the decisions we made.