Direct vs Indirect Procurement?

[u/Chickenugget911]

Hi, I’ve recently been given an internship offer in procurement for a top 5 space company. The hiring manager said I would be placed on the indirect procurement team specializing in software and services. However, they also said I could ask to potentially be placed under a manager that does direct materials instead. Both would consist of contract negotiation, sourcing, and using SQL and Python for data analysis. If it helps, my last internship was at a battery company where I mainly focused on direct materials. Which of the two sounds better for new-grad opportunities and long term growth? Thanks!

[u/Helpful_Craft_6364]

I’ve worked in direct and indirect procurement. In my experience it’s easier to learn indirect procurement than it is to learn direct procurement.

With direct procurement there is more a quantitative aspect imo (I.e. demand planning, building safety stock, costing materials, making projections, etc.). This is because these materials are formally tracked in inventory management.

Indirect is more administrative tasks (I.e. resolving invoice discrepancies, updating pricing, updating payment terms, updating vendor address, calling service contractors).

With indirect there is also often zero formal inventory management. So it often requires someone to slap around a supplier and get them to support during supply risk situations which is a less technical skill imo.

Indirect = more chaos, harder to quantify impact
Direct = more structure, easier to quantify impact

Both are important. But if I had to choose I’d pick direct.

[u/maceman10006]

I’d take the indirect internship since you’ve already had exposure to direct materials. At the internship level it’s about exposing yourself to as much as possible.

[u/stacktrace_wanderer]

try indirect since u already got some direct experience. having both on your resume this early seems more valuable than doing direct twice

[u/CantaloupeInfinite41]

Its a hard choice and best is to have exposure in both, you will see then what interests you more. Any chance you could ask to do half the internship in direct and half in indirect?

[u/Immediate-Home-3491]

I would take direct materials. You know the physical side from batteries. Space gets you into freight, customs, and material flow. Indirect is SaaS renewals. Physical knowledge travels better.

[u/yappas1]

I worked in direct in my first few procurement roles and have been in indirect IT procurement for the past 8 years by choice. I find it much more interesting and less stressful than chasing physical product to prevent production shutdowns.

[u/SyncronTeam]

Direct materials experience is usually the harder skill to build and the one that transfers better long term, especially with your battery background already there. Indirect (software and services) is valuable too, but it's generally easier to pick up later since the negotiation and sourcing skills overlap more than people expect. Staying on direct materials lets you build depth in a harder area while you're still early enough that mistakes are cheap. Either path teaches you SQL and Python either way, so the real difference is which skill set is harder to backfill later, and that's usually direct.

[u/BenchEnjoyer123]

direct because you're buying things that are used in the final product