About the company
This position is listed on behalf of a partner company, who manages all applications and next steps. Our partner is looking for a Director, Finance of Product & Engineering based in United States.
Responsibilities
- Serve as the primary finance partner to senior Product & Engineering leaders, supporting budgets, forecasts, roadmaps, and investment decisions.
- Build trusted relationships with technical executives and translate business priorities into financial implications, tradeoffs, and recommendations.
- Own financial plans, forecasts, and long-range views for the organization, ensuring roadmap changes are reflected proactively in headcount and cost expectations.
- Establish and maintain strong roadmap-to-P&L linkage by translating product decisions into forward-looking headcount, cost, and resource-allocation forecasts.
- Partner with leadership on investment prioritization, resource tradeoffs, and portfolio reallocation decisions.
- Develop visibility into product-development economics, including the cost of building and maintaining products and the return generated by major investment areas.
- Lead monthly and quarterly business reviews with clear, driver-based narratives covering performance, risks, opportunities, and required actions.
- Build KPI and assumption frameworks connecting roadmap execution, hiring plans, productivity, and spending performance.
- Produce category forecasts according to established reporting standards and participate in accountability processes.
- Model and stress-test forecast assumptions across rate, volume, timing, and mix, ensuring forecasts are supported by clear underlying drivers.
- Explain variances at the driver level, distinguish timing differences from structural changes, and incorporate appropriate run-rate expectations.
- Identify emerging forecast risks early and work with business leaders on mitigation plans before escalation is required.
- Validate Cost of Revenue cost centers and headcount data for consolidated Finance processes and company-level reporting.
- Partner with adjacent Finance teams on cross-functional initiatives requiring Product & Engineering expertise while maintaining clear ownership boundaries.
- Represent Product & Engineering in FP&A, annual operating planning, and long-range planning processes.
- Ensure executive and business reviews clearly connect strategic decisions, operating performance, financial outcomes, risks, and investment opportunities.
Requirements
- 10+ years of progressive experience in FP&A, strategic finance, or business-unit finance, ideally supporting Product, Engineering, R&D, or other technical organizations within SaaS or enterprise technology environments.
- Bachelor’s degree in Finance, Accounting, Economics, or a related field required; MBA, CFA, or CPA preferred.
- Proven experience acting as a direct finance partner to senior business leaders, with the executive presence and judgment to establish credibility with SVP-level stakeholders.
- Strong experience building and owning driver-based forecasting models, including headcount-to-cost, roadmap-to-cost, and resource-planning models.
- Advanced financial modeling, analytical, and problem-solving skills, with the ability to turn ambiguous inputs into structured assumptions, scenarios, and recommendations.
- Ability to challenge assumptions constructively while operating with curiosity, influence, sound judgment, and a strong business-partner mindset.
- Experience leading planning, forecasting, and business-review processes within complex, matrixed organizations.
- Strong systems and data fluency, including experience working with shared data models and planning platforms rather than relying on disconnected offline reporting.
- Experience with planning platforms such as Anaplan, Adaptive, or Pigment and analytics tools such as Tableau, Power BI, or similar; SQL is a plus.
- Demonstrated ability to use AI tools to accelerate financial modeling, reporting, analysis, and synthesis while maintaining strong financial judgment.
- Comfort working in an AI-enabled environment and applying emerging AI capabilities to improve efficiency, solve business challenges, and support better decisions.
- Strong communication skills and the ability to translate complex financial and operational information into clear narratives for technical and Finance executives.
Conditions
- Competitive compensation package.
- Paid time off.
- Paid parental leave.
- Eligibility for bonuses for applicable employees.
- Health and wellness benefits that may include medical, life, and disability insurance, depending on location.
- An inclusive workplace committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion.
- Employee resource groups supported by senior leadership and executive sponsors.
- Opportunities to work in an AI-enabled environment and develop practical experience with modern AI tools and technologies.
- High-visibility exposure to Product & E