SaaS Category Specialist

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Position Overview:

The Category Specialist for SaaS & Technology Solutions will support software strategy, sourcing, competitive events, contract negotiations, and supplier management across the enterprise. The role requires deep familiarity with SaaS commercial models, renewal cycles, supplier lock-in dynamics, consumption-based pricing, and negotiation strategies with major industry players. This role partners closely with IT, Legal, Operational Risk, Cyber, Business Owners, and Supplier Risk Management to deliver cost optimization, risk transparency, and improved leverage across the SaaS portfolio.

Our Impact:

Our team unlocks value from our supply network to enable growth, innovation and an outstanding customer experience! We seek to improve customer experience, mitigate third-party risk and demonstrate our buying power in order to build, enable, and sustain value for our business partners and suppliers.

Your Impact:

Key Responsibilities

1. Category Strategy & Market Intelligence

• Develop annual category strategy for SaaS products across enterprise.
• Understand emerging SaaS trends: AI-enabled offerings, shifting license models, supplier consolidation, major acquisitions, and new regulatory obligations (e.g., data residency, AI governance, etc.).
• Maintain competitive benchmarks and price trends for major platforms (e.g., per-user license growth, price uplift norms).

2. Sourcing & Negotiation

• Lead RFPs, renewals, and competitive events for SaaS agreements (typically $1M-$25M).
• Negotiate with major technology suppliers known for aggressive pricing models.
• Drive 24-month renewal look-ahead to create leverage, evaluate switching options, and coordinate exit strategy readiness.
• Develop negotiation positions including licensing optimization, demand management, alternative vendor analysis, and Total Cost of Ownership (TCO).

3. Contracting & Risk Alignment

• Collaborate with Legal on contract terms including:
  
  • Data privacy
  • AI use & model training restrictions
  • Security requirements
  • SLAs, credits, uptime
  • Term length aligned to exit strategy readiness (12/24/36+ months)

• Review and negotiate complex SaaS terms such as:
  
  • Overages
  • Usage tiers
  • True-ups / True-downs
  • Auto-renew / evergreen risk
  • De-scoping & termination assistance

4. Supplier Relationship Management & Performance

• Develop supplier scorecards and quarterly business reviews for tier-1 SaaS suppliers.
• Track delivery, performance, roadmap alignment, price changes, and compliance.
• Identify emerging risks: supplier lock-in, underutilization, shadow IT, duplicate tools.

5. Governance & Reporting

• Prepare materials for Executive Leadership governance including renewal dashboards, contract risk heat maps, and business case summaries.
• Partner with IT stakeholders for forecasting and consumption modeling.
• Document category playbooks, standard negotiation strategies, and supplier intelligence profiles.

Qualifications:

Technical & Procurement Expertise

• 5-10+ years in technology procurement, with 3+ years focused on SaaS.
• Experience negotiating with top-tier SaaS providers.
• Strong understanding of SaaS licensing: per-seat, consumption-based, tiered, platform bundles, unlimited agreements, community licenses, sandbox pricing, etc.
• Proven ability to run sourcing events from intake ? strategy ? RFP ? evaluation ? negotiation ? contracting ? renewal governance.

Data & Analytics Capability

• Ability to model SaaS usage, optimize licenses, and scenario-plan renewal options.
• Skilled in evaluating cost models, utilization reports, and consumption dashboards.

Legal/Contract Experience

• Familiarity with SaaS terms, AI policies, uptime SLAs, indemnities, SOC reports, and cyber requirements.
• Ability to redline documents and propose alternative terms.

Keys to Success in this Role:

• Executive presence --comfortable presenting to senior leadership, risk committees.
• Influencing without authority across IT, Finance, and business divisions.
• Structured communication-can synthesize complex deals into concise decision memos.
• Negotiation maturity-knows when to escalate, when to walk away, and when to leverage competition.
• High integrity & risk awareness within a financial-services regulatory environment.

Current Freddie Mac employees please apply through the internal career site.

We consider all applicants for all positions without regard to gender, race, color, religion, national origin, age, marital status, veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity/expression, physical and mental disability, pregnancy, ethnicity, genetic information or any other protected categories under applicable federal, state or local laws. We will ensure that individuals are provided reasonable accommodation to participate in the job application or interview process, to perform essential job functions, and to receive other benefits and privileges of employment. Please contact us to request accommodation.

A safe and secure environment is critical to Freddie Mac's business. This includes employee commitment to our acceptable use policy, applying a vigilance-first approach to work, supporting regulatory mandates, and using best practices to protect Freddie Mac from potential threats and risk. Employees exercise this responsibility by executing against policies and procedures and adhering to privacy & security obligations as required via training programs.

CA Applicants: Qualified applications with arrest or conviction records will be considered for employment in accordance with the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance for Employers and the California Fair Chance Act.

Notice to External Search Firms: Freddie Mac partners with BountyJobs for contingency search business through outside firms. Resumes received outside the BountyJobs system will be considered unsolicited and Freddie Mac will not be obligated to pay a placement fee. If interested in learning more, please visit and register with our referral code: MAC.

Time-type:Full time

FLSA Status:Exempt

Freddie Mac offers a comprehensive total rewards package to include competitive compensation and market-leading benefit programs. Information on these benefit programs is available on our Careers site.

This position has an annualized market-based salary range of $110,000 - $166,000 and is eligible to participate in the annual incentive program. The final salary offered will generally fall within this range and is dependent on various factors including but not limited to the responsibilities of the position, experience, skill set, internal pay equity and other relevant qualifications of the applicant.