Senior Financial Planning & Analysis Manager

This position is listed on behalf of a partner company, who manages all applications and next steps. Our partner is looking for a Senior Financial Planning & Analysis Manager based in the United States. This is a strategic finance leadership opportunity for an experienced FP&A professional to support Engineering, Product, and Technical Operations within a growing SaaS technology environment. In this role, you will oversee financial planning, forecasting, and performance analysis across software development, cloud infrastructure, hosting, and AI-powered services. You will play a critical role in translating complex technical investments into actionable financial insights, helping optimize costs, improve product profitability, and guide strategic business decisions. Working closely with senior leadership and cross-functional teams, you will drive financial transparency and strengthen the organization's understanding of SaaS unit economics. You will also lead sophisticated financial modeling initiatives, including infrastructure investments, consumption-based AI costs, and product-level profitability assessments. This position offers the opportunity to combine advanced financial expertise, technology-driven analysis, and strategic business partnership in a dynamic, private-equity-owned organization. Accountabilities: • Engineering & R&D Financial Partnership: Serve as the primary finance partner to Engineering, Product, and Technical Operations leadership, translating technical roadmaps into financial plans, investment priorities, and strategic trade-offs. • Lead budgeting and forecasting activities for R&D and Engineering, covering workforce planning, contractors, software tools, and vendor expenditures. • Develop financial business cases and ROI analyses for build-versus-buy decisions, vendor optimization, infrastructure migrations, and strategic technology investments. • Partner with Accounting on software capitalization assessments and monitor engineering efficiency indicators, including R&D spending as a percentage of revenue and cost per engineer. • Cost of Sales & Hosting Cost Management: Establish and maintain financial forecasts that distinguish cost of sales from operating expenses, including hosting, third-party software, technical support, and professional services, in accordance with GAAP and internal policies. • Own the financial modeling of cloud and hosting infrastructure across public cloud platforms, colocation facilities, and data centers, incorporating usage drivers, reserved capacity, and contractual commitments. • Analyze infrastructure spending by service, product, and customer segment, collaborating with Engineering and FinOps teams to identify cost optimization opportunities. • Support monthly financial close processes by coordinating infrastructure cost analysis and accruals with Accounting. • Infrastructure Contracts & Capacity Planning: Model and evaluate infrastructure vendor agreements covering cloud services, content delivery networks (CDNs), colocation, networking, and hardware leases. • Assess contractual commitments, tiered pricing structures, usage adjustments, overage exposure, renewals, and financial implications of vendor agreements. • Develop capacity planning and infrastructure expansion models for new data center investments, evaluating capital expenditures, operating expenses, depreciation, lease accounting, and investment payback. • Compare owned or colocated data center infrastructure with public cloud alternatives, assessing migration costs, transition periods, dual-running expenses, and long-term savings. • AI & Consumption-Based Cost Modeling: Develop financial models for AI and platform consumption costs, including token-based pricing, input and output usage, model tiers, caching, GPU resources, computing capacity, and inference expenses. • Build driver-based forecasts connecting customer adoption, usage patterns, and unit costs to overall technology spending. • Assess the financial and gross margin implications of AI-powered product features to support pricing, packaging, and investment decisions. • Establish and monitor unit-cost indicators, such as cost per token, transaction, active user, or customer tenant, and implement regular reporting processes. • Product Margin & Cost Allocation: Develop and maintain product-level profit and loss statements (P&Ls) and gross margin analyses, combining SaaS subscription revenue with direct and allocated expenses. • Design, document, and maintain cost allocation methodologies for shared expenses, including hosting, support, R&D, IT, and facilities, using appropriate allocation drivers such as headcount, usage, customer volume, and user populations. • Ensure allocation methodologies support both financial forecasting and GAAP-compliant reporting. • Calculate cost-to-serve metrics per user and customer, analyzing profitability across products, business segments, and customer cohorts. • Provide financial insights to inform product investment decisions, pricing strategies, and potential product migration or discontinuation. • Financial Planning, Reporting & Process Improvement: Manage annual budgeting and quarterly forecasting cycles, ensuring alignment with organizational objectives and strategic priorities. • Ensure the accuracy, consistency, and integrity of financial reporting through advanced financial modeling, detailed data analysis, and effective controls. • Prepare monthly, quarterly, and annual financial reports and executive presentations for the CFO and Board of Directors, highlighting engineering expenses, hosting costs, gross margins, and key financial performance indicators. • Develop P&Ls, financial presentations, and quarterly business review (QBR) materials for Engineering and Product leadership, including detailed budget-versus-actual analysis and variance explanations. • Identify financial risks, business opportunities, and performance trends, providing actiona