Procurement Operations Business Partner - Workplace, Security and People

About the role

Procurement Operations is the front door for buying at Anthropic. We sit inside Finance Operations and own the path from "I need to buy something" to a signed agreement, an accurate purchase order, and clean spend data at month end.

We are hiring a Procurement Operations Business Partner to own that path for the teams that keep Anthropic's offices, people, and physical spaces running. Workplace covers real estate, office build outs and leases, furniture and equipment, facilities services, maintenance, and food and beverage. Security covers physical security: guard services, access control and badging, cameras, and security consulting that protect our offices and people. People covers recruiting agencies and recruiting operations, HR systems, benefits and Total Rewards vendors, and training and development.

You will be the person who makes all of it feel simple to the teams who depend on it and reliable to the Finance stakeholders behind it.

This is a high volume role with an accounting core. You ensure every purchase in your portfolio is coded, dated, received, and accrued correctly, so spend is right in the books every month. Expect a steady queue of requests, statements of work, change orders, and renewals, and expect to be the person Accounting trusts on all of it.

We use Claude as part of our daily workflow and are looking for someone who wants to help define what an AI native procurement operations function looks like, including how AI changes intake, document review, vendor coordination, and requester support.

Responsibilities

Own the purchasing process

• Manage a high volume of purchase requests, statements of work, change orders, and renewals each month across Workplace, Security, and People, keeping speed and accuracy high at the same time.
• Serve as the primary procurement partner by guiding requesters from initial request to signed agreement and issued purchase order.
• Review every purchase request for the things that matter downstream: the right vendor record and contracting entity, complete commercial documents, correct spend categorization and service dates, and the approvals the purchase actually needs.
• Determine what each request requires before it can move, whether that is a statement of work, an amendment, a lease review, a privacy review, or a third party risk assessment, and route it to the right reviewers the first time.
• Partner with Privacy, Security, and Third Party Risk on vendors that handle employee or candidate data or have physical access to our offices, such as badging and camera systems, background check providers, and on site service staff. Hold the line that nothing goes live without the review it needs.
• Launch and track contract review with Legal and outside counsel, keep it moving, and confirm the executed agreement supports the purchase order before it is issued.
• Structure purchase orders so they match how the vendor bills (fixed fee, milestone or progress billing, time and materials, per placement, per head, or recurring monthly service) and how Accounting needs to see the spend, with the right GL account, cost center, and service period on every line. Manage change orders, renewals, and closures over the life of each agreement.
• Handle the mechanics that come with physical work and goods: multi line quotes, deposits, lead times, receiving, and asset handoffs for furniture, fixtures, and equipment.
• Know where a purchase belongs. Not everything in these categories should run through a purchase order, and you help requesters tell the difference between a contract that needs Procurement and spend that belongs on a card.

Financial completeness and accuracy

• Code every purchase order correctly at creation, including GL account, spend category, cost center, and service period, and understand how each choice lands in the financials: capitalized build out and equipment versus operating spend, deposits and prepaids versus expense, and lease versus non lease costs.
• Work the hard cases with Accounting: progress billed construction, retainage, partially delivered milestones, guard services billed in arrears against changing staffing schedules, placement fees tied to start dates and guarantee periods, credits and true ups, and change orders that land mid month.
• Understand what a contract actually commits us to, including term, termination for convenience, and notice periods, so firm commitment reporting reflects the real exposure.
• Own the open purchase order book: receipts recorded against actual delivery, periodic reviews, stale line cleanup, coding corrections, and timely closures, so PO, receipt, and invoice agree.
• Serve as the first line reviewer for month end accruals on your portfolio, gathering estimates from vendors and budget owners for variable spend and confirming or correcting proposed amounts so Accounting can close on time.
• Partner with Accounts Payable to resolve invoice holds, PO mismatches, and receiving questions so vendors are paid on time and spend lands where it belongs.
• Support audit and reporting requests that touch your portfolio, including commitment schedules and control evidence, with data you can stand behind.

Be the front door

• Be visible and responsive in your teams' Slack channels and office hours; answer routine purchasing questions quickly and escalate real blockers with context.
• Apply purchasing policy consistently and explain the why, including approval thresholds, signature authority, and when an exception is and is not available.
• Translate procurement, legal, privacy, and finance requirements into plain language for Workplace, Security, and People teams, and carry their operating reality back to those teams so controls fit the work. An office opening date, a guard post that has to be staffed tonight, or a recruiting search that has to start this week are real constraints, and you plan around them.
• Keep a regular check in with your highest volume teams so upcoming office projects, renewals, staffing changes, and searches are visible early and nothing urgent arrives as a surprise.

Continuous improvement

• Maintain the playbooks, intake guidance, and standard operating procedures for your portfolio so the path is repeatable and does not live in one person's head.
• Identify manual steps, repeat questions, and failure points and fix them, including where Claude and workflow automation can take work off requesters and the team.

Minimum qualifications

• 5 to 7+ years of procurement operations, purchasing, or vendor operations, including time supporting Workplace or Facilities, Security, or People teams.
• Proven track record of owning a high volume purchasing portfolio end to end in a procure to pay and intake platform.
• Solid working knowledge of accrual accounting as it applies to purchasing: accruals and reversals, service period and cutoff, prepaid versus expense, capital versus operating spend, and GL and cost center coding. You can explain how a purchase order becomes an entry in the general ledger.
• Experience managing services vendors on master agreements with statements of work and change orders, where scope moves and the contract, the PO, and the invoice have to stay in sync.
• Experience with facilities, real estate, or construction purchasing, including milestone or progress billing and receiving against physical delivery.
• Working knowledge of how contract review, privacy and security review, and financial controls fit together in a purchase, and the judgment to know when to push a request through and when to slow it down.

Preferred qualifications

• Experience with office build outs, leases, or fixed asset purchasing, including furniture, fixtures, and equipment, and working alongside Lease Accounting or Fixed Assets.
• Experience buying physical security services or systems, such as guard services, access control, or video surveillance.
• Experience with recruiting agencies, contingent workforce, or HR and benefits vendors, including the privacy review that comes with employee and candidate data.
• Background in accounting, accounts payable, or a month end close process.
• Direct experience with Zip, Workday Financials, and Ironclad.
• Prior ownership of month end accrual review or open PO reconciliation for a large, variable spend portfolio.
• Experience designing tiered intake or approval frameworks that sped up low risk purchases without weakening controls.