AI & Cloud FinOps Engineer

Willis Towers Watson; Chicago, Northern (IL, KY); Hybrid; USD 130,000 - 140,000; Full time

Job summary

Willis Towers Watson is evolving its FinOps practice to automate cloud and AI cost controls. The role focuses on planning, monitoring, optimizing, and evolving FinOps for Azure and AI at scale.

You will automate cost estimates, data ingestion, attribution, and alerting, while enabling governance and cost hygiene across a global tech estate. The ideal candidate has 5+ years in cloud cost management, strong Azure tooling experience, and a track record of automation that replaces recurring manual

Qualifications

• Typically 5+ years in cloud cost management, cloud engineering, platform engineering or related discipline.
• Strong Microsoft Azure experience, including cost management tooling.
• Automation engineering capability: Python with Azure Logic Apps/Functions or equivalents.
• Strong data and query skills with cost data, preferably against FOCUS-aligned datasets.
• Understanding of AI cost drivers across vendors.
• Knowledge of FinOps framework, cost showback/chargeback.
• Ability to translate cost data into reporting for engineers and finance.
• Track record of cost optimization.

Responsibilities

• Automate design-time cost estimates for workloads and AI features.
• Automate ingestion, normalization and allocation of cloud and AI cost data.
• Instrument AI cost attribution by team, product, feature and environment.
• Build alert-to-closure workflow with budget and anomaly alerts.
• Automate insights-to-action routing and rightsizing actions.
• Help define guardrails for AI spend with real-time visibility and policy enforcement.
• Develop FinOps for AI, including unit economics and hygiene.

Skills

Cloud cost mgmt

Azure cost mgmt

Automation

Python

Logic Apps

Power BI

Cost data

FinOps framework

AI cost drivers

Communication

Tools

Azure Logic Apps

Azure Functions

Power BI

Job description

Description

WTW is evolving the FinOps practice that keeps our AI and cloud spend visible, accountable and efficient. This role will help drive the evolution from traditional cloud FinOps to Tokenomics, and the automation of that practice.

You will build the controls, reporting, and automation that let our FinOps practice run without manual effort across Azure and AI, and you will help stand up our FinOps for AI capability from a standing start. Small core FinOps team, global estate, and work that is visible to our most senior technology leaders.

The Role

We focus on 4 core areas: how we plan spend, how we monitor it, how we optimize it, and how the practice itself evolves.

Plan: design cost in before it is spent

• Automate design-time cost estimates, so the cost of a workload or an AI feature is understood before it is built.

• Support continuous forecasting by support the automation of the monthly forecast and variance pack, including AI-drafted commentary, published to stakeholders each month.

Monitor: make cost visible without manual effort

• Automate the ingestion, normalization and allocation of cloud and AI cost data, aligned to FOCUS, so that reporting maintains itself instead of being rebuilt each month.

• Instrument AI cost attribution at source; Team, product, feature and environment on every call so that token and model consumption can be attributed, shown back and charged back.

• Build the alert-to-closure workflow: multi-threshold budget and anomaly alerts routed to a named owner, with response SLAs, escalation, and closure evidence captured automatically.
• Enhance monitoring with automated metrics that lead to meaningful and actionable insights.

Optimize: turn insights into action

• Automate insight-to-action routing so optimization recommendations, anomalies, and trends reach the right owner, are tracked to resolution, and do not quietly expire.
• Automate cost hygiene: detection of orphaned and idle resources triggering lifecycle actions and build the tooling behind our rightsizing practice.
• Help shape the guardrails that stop AI spend running away: real-time visibility, cost controls, step and budget caps on agentic workloads, and a central model-routing layer that enforces model-tier policy, caching and batching without teams having to change their code.

Evolve: grow the practice, especially for AI

• Build out our FinOps for AI practice: unit economics such as cost per prompt, per outcome, per user and per agent run; model, seat and feature hygiene.
• Apply AI to the practice itself: anomaly explanation, tagging remediation, variance commentary and optimization prioritization.
• Codify and automate best practices, so engineering, product and finance teams can act without queuing behind the central team.

Qualifications

The Requirements

Essential

• Typically 5+ years in cloud cost management, cloud engineering, platform engineering or a closely related discipline.

• Strong Microsoft Azure experience, including the cost management tooling. Awareness of AI services such as Azure Foundry.

• Automation engineering capability: for example Python together with Azure Logic Apps and Functions, or close equivalents, and a track record of replacing recurring manual processes with reliable, monitored automation.

• Strong data and query skills with experience gathering and maintaining cost data, ideally against FOCUS-aligned datasets.

• Understanding of AI cost drivers across different vendors (e.g. GitHub, Anthropic, OpenAI): token consumption, model selection, inference versus training, provisioned throughput, and usage-based pricing models.

• Working knowledge of the FinOps Framework in an enterprise setting, including how cost allocation, showback and chargeback work in practice.

• Ability to translate cost data into something that lands with both engineers and finance, including reporting in Power BI or similar.

• The communication skills to bring engineering, product and finance teams along on a FinOps cultural transformation.

• A track record of identifying and delivering cost optimization.

Desirable

• FinOps Certified Practitioner, or working towards it.

• Experience with a commercial multicloud FinOps platform (e.g. Cloudability or CloudHealth).

• Exposure to AI guardrails and governance — rate limiting, budget controls, policy-as-code.

• Integration experience with alerting and workflow tooling such as Microsoft Teams and ServiceNow.

• Experience beyond Azure (AWS, OCI or GCP) and with SaaS cost management.

What success looks like

In your first 12-18 months, we would expect to see:

• Tagging compliance held above 95%, sustained by automation rather than manual clean-up.

• Optimization recommendations actioned and measured, with nothing expiring unseen.

• Budget and anomaly alerts closed through the automated workflow, each with a complete audit trail.

• A material reduction in the manual effort behind monthly reporting and forecasting.

• A working AI unit-economics view that product teams actually use to make build decisions.

Note: Employment-based non-immigrant visa sponsorship and/or assistance is not offered for this specific job opportunity.

Compensation and Benefits

Base salary range and benefits information for this position are being included in accordance with requirements of various state/local pay transparency legislation. Please note that salaries may vary for different individuals in the same role based on several factors, including but not limited to location of the role, individual competencies, education/professional certifications, qualifications/experience, performance in the role and potential for revenue generation (Producer roles only).

Compensation

The base salary compensation range being offered for this role is $130,000.00-$140,000.00 USD annually. This role is also eligible for an annual short-term incentive bonus.

Company Benefits

WTW provides a competitive benefit package which includes the following (eligibility requirements apply):

• Health and Welfare Benefits: Mental health/emotional wellbeing (including Employee Assistance Program), medical (including prescription drug coverage and fertility benefits), dental, vision, Health Savings Account, Commuter Accounts, Health Care and Dependent Care Flexible Spending Accounts, company-paid life insurance, supplemental life insurance, AD&D, group accident, group critical illness, group legal, identify theft protection, wellbeing program, adoption assistance, surrogacy assistance, auto/home insurance, pet insurance and other work/life resources
• Leave Benefits: Paid holidays, annual paid time off (includes state/local paid leave where required), company-paid disability (short-term and long-term disability), other leaves (e.g., bereavement, FMLA, ADA, jury duty, military leave, and Parental and Adoption Leave), Paid Time Off (only included for Washington roles)
• Retirement Benefits: Qualified contributory pension plan (if eligible) and 401(k) plan with annual nonelective company contribution. Non-qualified retirement plans available to senior level colleagues who satisfy the plans’ eligibility requirements.

Pursuant to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance and Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance for Employers, we will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records.

This position will remain posted for a minimum of three business days from the date posted or until sufficient/appropriate candidate slate has been identified.