Senior Buyer

The City of Santa Rosa is looking for a resourceful and experienced Senior Buyer to join our team!

The Benefits of City Employment
In addition to a challenging, rewarding work environment and excellent salary, the City offers

• 12 paid holidays annually, plus 2 to 3 "floating" holidays per year depending on years of service
• a competitive leave accrual package
• a generous suite of benefits, including retirement through CalPERS, your choice of two health plans, a flexible spending program, and top of the line employer paid vision and dental coverage.
• $500 annually for wellness

More information regarding benefits associated with this position can be found on our Miscellaneous Employee Benefits Page. 

The Senior Buyer will be assigned independent purchasing responsibilities, including the facilitation of complex Requests for Quotations, Invitations for Bids, and Requests for Proposals (RFP), as well as bid solicitations from bid creation to staff report award recommendation.  The incumbent will also be assigned full contract management responsibilities, including performance monitoring and facilitation, price negotiations, contract extensions and rebids.

The ideal candidate will be an experienced procurement professional with experience executing a full range of services, supplies, equipment, materials, and minor public work for a government agency similar to the City of Santa Rosa, or a large private organization with similar purchasing requirements for informal and formal bidding.  The ideal candidate will have knowledge of, and experience working with, procurements that require California Department of Industrial Relations guidelines.  The ideal candidate will have outstanding written and verbal communication skills; superior customer service skills; and the ability to work cooperatively with internal and external customers.  The ideal candidate will also possess strong organizational, analytical, and problem solving skills, and experience effectively utilizing technology in procurement.


Applicants possessing the most desirable qualifications based on a screening of application materials, including the supplemental questionnaire, will be invited to continue in the selection process.  This recruitment will result in an eligible list of qualified candidates that may be used to fill future vacancies.

Please complete a thoughtful, thorough supplemental questionnaire submission.
As part of the selection process, your responses to these questions will be scored using criteria specific to this position. Incomplete responses, or responses such as "See Resume," may result in disqualification.


The City of Santa Rosa is committed to building a workforce reflective of our community and establishing a lasting culture of equity and belonging within our organization. Our collective talents and expertise contribute to high-quality public services that support a vibrant, resilient, inclusive City for our community and visitors. We celebrate a diverse workforce and welcome all qualified candidates to apply.


 Current City employees interested in promotion or transfer to Senior Buyer are encouraged to apply now.

Examples of Duties and Responsibilities

The following duties are considered essential for this classification:

• Schedule and manage purchasing workload;
• assign and evaluate work of Buyers, technicians and clerical staff;
• train and develop purchasing staff;
• recommend hiring and disciplinary actions to management;
• assist with the preparation of performance evaluations;
• approve or deny employee requests for time off;
• receive, examine and process departmental requisitions;
• using a PC, prepare bid specifications and other necessary documents, including RFPs, related to the purchase of supplies, materials, equipment and services;
• solicit bids from vendors;
• compare costs and evaluate the quality and suitability of supplies, materials, equipment and services;
• prepare bid specifications and other necessary documents to solicit bids for major public works projects;
• prepare and submit analysis of formal bids received for presentation to the City Manager, City Council and Board of Public Utilities (BPU), including recommendations and draft resolutions;
• make presentations to City Council and BPU;
• inspect major equipment purchases for conformity to bid specifications;
• conduct post-award conferences with vendors;
• administer service, supply and public works type contracts;
• resolve contract problems and monitor contract performance with customer departments;
• assist customer departments in planning purchases to meet their requirements;
• work with customer departments to resolve problems and enhance service;
• review files and management data to identify problem areas in purchasing policies and procedures;
• recommend changes to policies and procedures to improve service and cost effectiveness;
• keep informed about new products and market conditions and prices;
• maintain contact with vendors and evaluate vendor performance;
• prepare routine reports and management information;
• coordinate with other agencies in joint purchase arrangements and with the State on cooperative purchasing programs;
• maintain a working relationship with central stores and substores on matters relating to substitutions, equivalents and vendor problems;
• assist in managing the disposition of surplus or obsolete items;
• manage procurement matters in the absence of the Purchasing Agent;
• perform related duties as assigned.

Required Qualifications

Knowledge of: Techniques of supervision and training; automated purchasing methods and procedures and the techniques of specification writing; methods and techniques utilized in grading and analyzing the quality of supplies, materials, equipment and services; a variety of materials, supplies and equipment typically used in municipal services and the sources for such products; federal, state and municipal purchasing laws and procedures; contract law and contract administration; computer systems and software, including Microsoft Outlook, Word and Excel. Ability to: Build productive on-going working relationships with vendors and user departments; supervise, train and evaluate staff members; plan, organize, assign and schedule work and set priorities; gather, synthesize, summarize, analyze and abstract information; review purchasing processes and recommend areas for improvement; analyze bids; identify operational problems and take corrective action; evaluate quality and price of products to judge suitability of goods and alternatives offered; prepare specifications; communicate clearly and concisely, orally and in writing; prepare written documents for an audience including managers, executives and the general public; interpret and explain City purchasing policies; make public oral presentations and; plan and facilitate meetings. Experience and Education: Any combination equivalent to experience and education that could likely provide the required knowledge and abilities would be qualifying. A typical way to obtain the knowledge and abilities would be: Experience - Sufficient years of experience in purchasing and materials management, preferably performing duties comparable to those of a Buyer in the City of Santa Rosa; experience should include significant work in the area of supply and service contract administration, preferably in a public agency. Supervisory or lead worker experience is desirable. Education - Equivalent to an Associate of Arts Degree in Business Administration or related field. A certificate in Purchasing Management or Contract Administration from a nationally-recognized organization is also desirable.

The City does not discriminate on the basis of disability in employment. Requests for reasonable accommodations needed to participate in the recruitment process may be made by submitting a Request for Reasonable Accommodation Form within five (5) business days of being noticed that an event requiring accommodation is occurring. 

Please mention you found this employment opportunity on the CareersInGovernment.com job board.

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• City of Santa Rosa

• 707-543-3060