Category Manager, Software

About the role

We are building a dedicated Software category within Global Procurement's Tech Sourcing organization. The Category Manager - Software is a hands-on sourcing position who can manage and execute sourcing and category strategies for specific software categories.

In this role you will own day-to-day sourcing and supplier management across enterprise software deals. The portfolio includes enterprise operations, productivity, and collaboration tools, alongside the wider software estate. You will translate category plans into sourcing events, commercial analysis, contract execution, and measurable outcomes.

You will partner closely with business and technology stakeholders and Procurement colleagues to ensure we are extracting maximum value from supplier and reseller relationships, managing renewals, licensing, and consumption, and driving measurable business impact across a complex and fast-moving spend category.

This is an individual-contributor role where the impact will span globally across multiple regions, partnering with other software category managers to ensure one of our fastest-growing and most visible categories is managed optimally.

What you'll do

- Category Planning and Execution: work with the business stakeholders to support development of category planning and implementation of the software category strategy.

- Sourcing delivery: Plan and run end-to-end sourcing events (RFI, RFQ, and RFP) for enterprise software, prepare commercial evaluation models, negotiation strategies (commercial and contract), and award recommendations.

- Commercial management: Support negotiations on agreements; structure pricing, licensing, renewal mechanics, SLAs, and commercial terms in line with Procurement and Legal standards.

- Supplier performance: Monitor supplier delivery, service levels, support quality, and renewal risk; manage supplier escalation paths

- Stakeholder partnership: Act as a trusted Procurement partner to business operations, enterprise technology, and other stakeholder teams on software requirements, licensing, timelines, and total cost of ownership (TCO).

- Market and risk intelligence: Track licensing models, price inflation, vendor consolidation, and consumption trends; surface risks and opportunities to stakeholder teams.

- Process and compliance: Ensure software purchases follow Optiver Procurement policy and controls; maintain accurate records in sourcing and contract systems.

- Cross-regional coordination: Collaborate with Procurement colleagues to align global frameworks, regional exceptions, and consistent ways of working across geographies.

- Knowledge sharing: Contribute to category playbooks, should-cost models, and lessons learned from sourcing events to uplift team capability.

What you’ll get

You’ll join a culture of collaboration and excellence, surrounded by curious thinkers and creative problem-solvers. Motivated by a passion for continuous improvement, you’ll thrive in a supportive, high-performing environment alongside talented colleagues, collectively tackling some of the toughest challenges in the financial markets.