Procurement Advisory Services (contract)

Who We Are Hi, we're DuckDuckGo , the online protection company and remote-first team of 400+ on a mission to raise the standard of trust online. Founded in 2008 and profitable since 2014, annual revenue now exceeds $100m USD and millions use our browser on Mac , Windows , iOS , and Android , our search engine , and the DuckDuckGo subscription . We also offer private, useful, and optional AI, including Duck.ai , which lets you chat privately with ChatGPT, Claude, and other AIs, all in one place. Partnerships Team The Partnerships team sources, negotiates, and manages external relationships behind DuckDuckGo's products, from AI model and cloud infrastructure providers to distribution, content, and monetization partners. Alongside that work, the team also handles a steady stream of vendor deals for the software, tooling, and service contracts that keeps the company running. Our Need We are seeking a well-established, independent Procurement Advisor Practice to advise the partnerships team in DuckDuckGo's vendor selection, procurement and negotiations. Our procurement efforts cover a broad set of vendors including collaboration tools, AI services, SaaS, analytics and data tools, developer tooling, and professional services. We are seeking a procurement advisory practice that will provide our team with counsel on needs scoping, vendor identification, vendor conversations, price negotiations strategies and benchmarks, and guidance on proposed terms. DuckDuckGo remains responsible for our internal processes and approvals, and for signing vendor contracts. Advisory Practice Profile 10+ years advisory practice in procurement, strategic sourcing, or vendor management, with a focus on software and SaaS. Your practice has provided direction on hundreds of contracts and has deep enough experience to provide clients with guidance on where the leverage usually is. Your practice has a well-established approach to commercial and contractual details -- including deep experience in providing guidance on order forms, MSAs, and DPAs terms, a time-tested methodology for vendor comparison, and proven track record of working across a client organization including with legal, security, finance, product, engineering. Your practice has sufficient capacity to advise many small deals in parallel, each with a different internal owner. Your practice has deep experience in providing deal advisory across a broad set of vendors: collaboration, recruiting, analytics, developer tooling, data and research subscriptions, professional services. Your practice has a proven track record of building trust quickly with client teams, providing clear client communications, and working asynchronously across multiple time zones in North America and Europe. Your practice care s about privacy and has experience in navigating data handling and security issues with clients and vendors. Your practice is an established business: an operating entity or registered sole proprietorship with other current clients, its own professional liability insurance, and client references available on request. Your practice is located in the US. Engagement Details We expect the scope of work to cover an estimated 3 to 5 deals per month (estimated approximately 15-20 hours per week) compensated by a fixed rate, with pricing for additional volume set out in the statement of work, starting with an initial six-month term with the option to extend. This is a business-to-business services engagement, not employment. Your practice will deliver advisory services remotely on its own schedule with working sessions scheduled by mutual agreement. Your practice will use its own equipment, tools, and methods. DuckDuckGo will provide the deal information and access to internal deal owners needed for each engagement, and limited system access where a specific deal requires it. As an independent consultant, your practice is responsible for it