Vendor & Quality Manager

Cityside Fiber is seeking a motivated Vendor Performance & Quality Manager to join our Operations team. This individual-contributor role has no direct reports and is responsible for the end-to-end management of Operations vendors supporting Customer installations, drop construction, pre-construction, and related field activities. The role establishes and maintains the commercial, financial, quality, material-accountability, and performance controls necessary to ensure competitive pricing, accurate billing, sufficient capacity, responsible use of Company-owned materials, and consistent vendor quality.

Success in this position requires strong analytical judgment, financial discipline, negotiation and influence without direct supervisory authority, cross-functional collaboration, strong organizational abilities, and adaptability in a fast-paced environment.

• Develop and maintain an Operations vendor strategy aligned with forecasted demand, growth objectives, and required field capacity.
• Identify, evaluate, qualify, onboard, and maintain competitive vendor alternatives for installation, drop construction, pre-construction, and related field activities.
• Develop, maintain, and administer vendor rate cards and scopes of work; lead or support pricing negotiations, benchmark costs, and identify opportunities to improve unit economics.
• Establish and maintain vendor invoice-validation controls by comparing billed work to completed work, approved rates, supporting documentation, and authorized exceptions; identify and resolve duplicate, unsupported, inaccurate, or non-compliant charges.
• Own vendor quality performance governance and accountability, using independent Quality Assurance findings and operational performance data to hold vendors accountable for defects, rework, repeat truck rolls, restoration issues and Customer-impacting quality failures; establish and drive corrective actions through resolution.
• Partner closely with Procurement and Warehouse leadership to reconcile Company-owned materials issued to vendors against completed work and expected usage, identify unexplained variances, waste or loss, and ensure unused or recoverable materials are returned and accounted for.
• Establish and maintain vendor scorecards incorporating operational, financial, quality, material-utilization, capacity, SLA, and Customer-impact measures.
• Partner with Service Delivery, Field Services, and other operational leadership to define vendor performance measures, service expectations, capacity requirements, and corrective actions.
• Coordinate recurring vendor performance reviews and Quarterly Business Reviews in partnership with operational leadership, consolidating cost, quality, production, capacity, material-utilization, SLA, and Customer-impact results into a comprehensive assessment of vendor performance.
• Establish corrective-action plans for underperforming vendors, track commitments through resolution, and recommend workload expansion, reduction, suspension, renewal, or replacement based on objective performance.
• Partner with Quality Assurance and operational leadership to incorporate independent inspection findings into vendor performance management; track vendor-caused defects, rework, failed or repeat truck rolls, restoration issues, and associated financial impact.
• Maintain independence between vendor quality governance and technical Quality Assurance. Quality Assurance owns inspection standards, inspection execution, technical findings and independent quality reporting; this role owns vendor accountability, corrective action and the commercial and performance consequences resulting from those findings.
• Ensure vendor decisions consider total cost of performance, including labor, materials,…