Strategic Finance Lead, AI Infrastructure & R&D

Accountabilities:

• • Serve as the primary finance partner to the CTO and R&D leadership, influencing investment decisions across AI, cloud and compute infrastructure, engineering capacity, and product development.
  • Own the economic framework for AI, cloud, and compute by connecting usage, billing, operational, and financial data to forecasts and investment decisions.
  • Lead financial evaluations for major R&D investments, from initial business cases and alternatives analysis through execution, measurement, and post-investment review.
  • Own R&D planning, forecasting, and performance management across engineering headcount, AI and cloud infrastructure, compute, software, and external partners.
  • Develop driver-based models that identify changes, risks, opportunities, and performance trends early enough for leadership to take action.
  • Partner with AI, Engineering, Infrastructure, Procurement, and Accounting teams to improve infrastructure economics, evaluate major commitments, and optimize vendor and technology decisions.
  • Analyze strategic questions around infrastructure commitments, workload architecture, technical investments, resource allocation, and build-versus-buy decisions.
  • Translate complex R&D and infrastructure performance into concise executive and board-level narratives, clearly explaining what changed, why it changed, and what decisions should follow.
  • Establish scalable financial frameworks, operating metrics, and decision mechanisms that can evolve with the organization’s AI and R&D footprint.
  • Use AI, automation, and scalable systems to improve the speed, quality, and leverage of financial analysis while reducing manual reporting and recurring administrative work.
  • Build trusted relationships across technical and business functions, challenging assumptions constructively while maintaining a practical, outcome-oriented approach.
  • Help establish the foundations of an R&D finance function capable of scaling alongside increasingly complex AI, infrastructure, and product investments.

  Requirements:

  • 7+ years of experience in strategic finance, FP&A, investment banking, investing, consulting, business operations, or a related analytical discipline, with demonstrated ownership of complex and consequential work.
  • Proven ability to independently take ambiguous problems from initial framing through analysis, recommendation, stakeholder alignment, and execution.
  • Exceptional financial and analytical capabilities, including experience developing driver-based forecasts, investment cases, business models, and scalable decision frameworks from complex or incomplete data.
  • Strong understanding of financial planning, forecasting, performance management, investment analysis, and resource allocation.
  • Ability to quickly understand technical systems and learn how AI products, cloud infrastructure, compute environments, and modern technology organizations operate and scale.
  • Experience supporting Engineering, Product, Data Science, AI, Infrastructure, or similar technical organizations is highly valuable.
  • Relevant experience analyzing cloud, compute, AI infrastructure, usage-based technology costs, vendor commitments, product economics, or build-versus-buy decisions is preferred.
  • Excellent communication skills, with the ability to translate sophisticated financial and technical concepts into clear recommendations for senior technical and business leaders.
  • Demonstrated judgment and confidence to challenge assumptions constructively, influence senior stakeholders, and operate effectively without complete information.
  • Applied AI fluency, including demonstrated use of AI to improve financial analysis, modeling, research, workflows, or decision-making, together with the ability to evaluate the reliability of AI-generated outputs.
  • Strong ownership mentality, adaptability, curiosity, and comfort working in a fast-moving environment where priorities and assumptions can change quickly.
  • Ability to operate as a senior individual contributor with substantial autonomy while collaborating closely across multiple functions.

  Benefits:

  • Opportunity to influence high-impact investment decisions across AI, cloud infrastructure, engineering, and product development.
  • Direct exposure to senior technical and business leadership, with significant ownership from the outset.
  • High-autonomy environment where you can design financial frameworks, operating mechanisms, and scalable systems.
  • Opportunity to use AI and automation to expand individual impact and transform how strategic finance operates.
  • Potential to shape and build the supporting team as the mandate grows, with career progression not dependent on people management.
  • Distributed-first working environment with flexibility to collaborate across multiple locations.
  • Mission-driven work focused on helping public and private sector organizations investigate and disrupt crime and build a safer world.
  • Fast-paced, high-ownership culture with opportunities to solve complex problems and work across AI, technology, and security.
  • Strong emphasis on continuous learning, experimentation, feedback, craftsmanship, and cross-functional collaboration.
  • Inclusive environment built