Strategic Finance Lead, R&D

This is a fully remote position, open to applicants in United States.

📋 Description

• Develop an AI-driven, driver-based economic framework that links usage and billing data across numerous SKUs to forecasts and investment decisions.

• Discover opportunities for optimizing infrastructure spending and collaborate with Engineering to lower R&D costs while maintaining product velocity.

• Establish TRM's AI expenditure strategy alongside the Head of AI and monitor expenses against ROI by tool and workload.

• Oversee planning, forecasting, and the R&D headcount capacity model, implementing automated workflows to identify risks.

• Direct infrastructure and R&D investment initiatives from business case development through decision-making and evaluation.

• Craft narratives for executives and the board that elucidate R&D performance, changes, causes, and suggested actions.

• Revamp R&D finance utilizing AI, automation, and Pigment.

• Collaborate with the CTO and R&D leadership; report to the Head of Strategic Finance and FP&A.

• Deliver an initial AI-assisted GCP cloud forecast within 30 days, an AI expenditure strategy within 60 days, and an integrated R&D capacity model within 90 days.

• Engage in regular CTO/R&D working sessions, monthly cost and forecast evaluations, quarterly headcount-capacity planning, and annual Pigment planning cycles.

⛳️ Requirements

• 7+ years of experience in strategic finance, FP&A, business operations, or a similar field.

• Proven track record of managing significant projects from inception through to actionable recommendations.

• Strong skills in data-informed modeling, including driver-based forecasts, investment cases, and capacity models developed from incomplete or complex data sets.

• Practical experience in analyzing costs associated with cloud, compute, AI, or other usage-based technologies.

• Experience collaborating with leaders in Engineering, Product, Data, AI, or Infrastructure.

• Strong judgment and communication skills to establish trust with senior technical leaders.

• Practical fluency in AI, including leveraging AI to enhance modeling, research, or routine workflows while verifying output reliability.

• Eagerness to quickly learn technical systems and translate AI products and modern infrastructure into financial insights.

• Ability to thrive in ambiguity, adapt to rapid changes, take high ownership, collaborate effectively, and solve problems creatively.

🏝️ Benefits

• Competitive benefits, wellness programs, and time off, varying by country and local employment laws.

• A distributed-first/remote work environment.

• Significant ownership from the first day.

• Direct interaction with the CTO and the executive team.

• An opportunity to influence R&D finance operations.

• Potential to build a team as the mandate expands.