Director, Finance of Product & Engineering

Accountabilities

• 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.

Benefits:

• 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 & Engineering strategy, financial planning, investment decisions, and executive-level business partnership.

• Remote and/or onsite flexibility, depending on role and location.