Finance Business Partner, R&D

As the leader of R&D Finance, you will partner cross-functionally with leaders in engineering, product, and design and be responsible for various R&D strategic initiatives related to short and long-term financial planning. You will help the team size the investments they want to make and drive accountability for delivering results. This position will serve as both an advocate for the R&D team to empower their success and act as the guardrails for Finance to ensure we are building an enduring business model.

 This is a strategic and operational role within a hyper-growth company, with the chance to make a significant impact on the business and work directly with senior management on making key investment decisions. This role will report to the VP, FP&A and is a key role for our organization as we continue to evolve our FP&A function in step with the overall organization. 

Responsibilities

• Financial Leadership: Serve as a key financial strategist for the R&D divisions, crafting financial models that align with the company's strategic objectives. Elevate financial planning from mere budget management to strategic investment in innovation, ensuring every dollar spent maximizes engineering ROI and contributes to significant ACV/ ARR growth. 
• Comprehensive Budget Oversight: Champion the development and execution of comprehensive budget strategies across all R&D domains, incorporating sophisticated forecasting, resource allocation, and operational expense management to support scalable growth. Ensure these strategies are robust, flexible, and aligned with long-term corporate visions. 
• Drive forecasting and annual planning for bookings, operating expenses, headcount, and performance optimization for the R&D organization. 
• Provide analyses and insights into key metrics to serve as thought partners to R&D leaders in their strategic and operational decision-making.  
• Share valuable insights on operational and financial metrics as part of monthly and quarterly business reviews.
• Advanced Investment Analysis: Spearhead advanced investment analysis, applying rigorous financial and risk assessment methodologies to evaluate and prioritize R&D projects. Employ a strategic lens to investment decisions, focusing on long-term value creation and market differentiation. 
• Partnership and Collaboration: Act as a primary financial liaison between R&D, Corporate FP&A, Accounting, and external stakeholders. Forge strategic partnerships to refine financial models and operational efficiency, ensuring alignment with global financial strategies and compliance. 
• Global Strategy and Efficiency Optimization: Leverage deep analytical insights to refine and optimize global operations, particularly focusing on the strategic significance of the India office. Implement benchmarking and best practices to drive continual improvement in R&D efficiency and effectiveness. 
• Executive Decision Support: Provide executive-level support by delivering actionable financial insights and analyses that drive strategic decision-making. Evaluate complex scenarios to inform resource allocation, technological investments, and strategic project selections. 
• Financial Stewardship and Governance: Uphold the highest standards of financial integrity and governance across R&D operations. Ensure a culture of accountability, transparency, and strategic foresight in financial planning and analysis practices. 
• Innovation and Infrastructure Savings: Identify and execute innovative projects to achieve aggressive infrastructure savings targets without compromising on growth or service quality. Report on progress and adapt strategies to meet evolving technological and market demands. 
• Infrastructure Forecasting: Manage detailed infrastructure forecasts and control spending to meet gross margin expectations. Forecast non-Cost of Revenue (COR) infrastructure and underlying unit economics, including per product margins. 
• Assist with process and systems improvements to drive the company’s continued growth and scaling. 
• Support the data and tech partnership team 

What You'll Achieve

• Be the source of truth in Finance on all R&D spend, setting annual budgets, creating detailed and accurate monthly reporting, and maintaining a rolling forecast to make sure leadership has clear visibility into resource deployment.
• Partner deeply with your cross-functional counterparts to continually understand their current roadmap and ensure that they are adequately resourced to execute that plan, supporting their freedom to make tradeoffs in spend allocations to maximize outcomes.
• Evaluate the unit-economics of new products & features and their impact to the overall company financials to inform operational strategy.
• Dive deep into our existing tech stack and understand drivers of cost to both accurately forecast future usage and identify opportunities for optimization.

Qualifications: 

• 7+ years of experience in product finance focused role at a SaaS or high-growth technology company. 
• Is highly analytical and detail-oriented, with a strong aptitude and enthusiasm for complex problem-solving involving financial modeling and working with large data sets.
• Has experience and passion for SaaS and/or enterprise software business models and collaborating with SaaS engineering teams.
• Proficient in using SQL to obtain data to support decision-making.
• Has proven experience working cross-functionally and is a thoughtful collaborator and great listener, keenly focused on understanding business challenges, building strong relationships, and driving impact.
• Can communicate complex financial concepts with precision and clarity.
• Displays a high level of genuine curiosity about our business, exhibits eagerness to learn, and is biased toward action.

Base Salary Range: $132,706 to $194,635.  The base salary range represents the anticipated low and high end of the base salary range for this position. Actual salaries may vary and may be above or below the range based on various factors, including but not limited to work location and experience. The base salary is one component of 6sense’s total compensation package for this position. Other compensation may include a bonus program or commission plan, and stock options if approved by 6sense’s board. In addition, 6sense provides a variety of benefits, including generous health insurance coverage, life, and disability insurance, a 401K employer matching program, paid holidays, self-care days, and paid time off (PTO). #Li-remote

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Last updated on Jul 23, 2024