Controller/CPA

Corps Team; San Luis Obispo (CA); On-site; USD 170,000 - 185,000; Full time

Job summary

Corps Team seeks an experienced Controller to establish a clean financial baseline, build budgets and cost tracking, and support the external audit process. You will implement the control structure, lead reporting, and ensure transparency for leadership in a fast-moving drone manufacturing startup.

The role requires CPA (active or inactive), onsite work in San Luis Obispo, CA, and a hands-on approach to stand up finance processes in a small team.

Qualifications

• CPA designation required (active or inactive).
• Experience building finance structure from a low baseline.
• Experience with government-facing contract and cost tracking."
• Strong coordination with external auditors and advisors.

Responsibilities

• Baseline and stand up finance structure, budgets, control accounts, and cost tracking.
• Establish reporting cadence for leadership with timely visibility.
• Track industrial plan spend linked to projects and resources.
• Support audit and conversion with external advisors.
• Implement ERP/contract cost tracking using NetSuite.

Skills

CPA

Controller-level experience

Audit readiness

Interpersonal skills

Finance systems

Tools

NetSuite

ERP systems

Job description

Our client, a start-up company focused on drone manufacturing, is seeking an experienced Controller.

This role will be onsite in San Luis Obispo, CA and must be a CPA (active or inactive).

This role brings professional finance discipline to a newly acquired company from the inside, building the reporting, controls, and budgeting the business needs. This helps scale them into production-grade suppliers. This business is strong on engineering and light on finance little formal accounting structure. The Controller is the dedicated finance professional and will work alongside the founder team and existing operations lead to baseline the books, stand up structure, and prepare the business for audit.

What You Own

• Baseline the books. Establish a clean, reliable financial baseline for the company, working alongside the existing operations lead and the external advisors already engaged.
• Stand up structure. Build the work-breakdown and control-account structure, department budgets, and cost tracking the company currently lacks, so spend can be managed against plan rather than after the fact.
• Track the industrial plan. Put in place day-to-day and month-to-month tracking of the invested capital against the industrial-plan use of funds, tying spend to the projects and resources it was earmarked for.
• Reporting cadence. Establish regular financial reporting so leadership has timely, accurate visibility, replacing the reactive, ad hoc information flow that exists today.
• Cost Accounting. Record, analyze, and track all costs, compare budget vs spend.
• Support audit and conversion. Coordinate with the external advisors handling the cash-to-accrual conversion and the independent audit, providing the on-the-ground finance support they need from the company.
• Systems and cost visibility. Help implement the systems and processes required for contract- and resource-level cost tracking at the portfolio company, in coordination with the corporate ERP standard (NetSuite) rather than as a standalone system.

How You Work with the Founder and Team

This role works alongside the founder team, which is passionate about the technology and less focused on back-office matters.

Success means being proactive and on top of the finances rather than waiting to be asked, while remaining respectful of a small team that is not accustomed to formal finance processes.

The goal is to add the structure the business needs without disrupting the culture and pace that make it work.

The existing operations lead, who has carried finance along with many other responsibilities, remains part of the team.

This role provides the finance expertise the company has lacked, in partnership with that person rather than in place of them.

Qualifications

• Strong controller-level or senior finance experience, ideally in a related regulated environment.
• Experience building finance structure from a low baseline: budgets, control accounts, cost tracking, and reporting where little existed before.
• Familiarity with contract- and resource-level cost tracking and the reporting standards expected in government-facing businesses.
• Comfort coordinating with external auditors and advisors and supporting audit readiness.
• Systems fluency, with experience implementing or converting ERP and financial systems (NetSuite experience a plus).
• A hands-on, proactive operator comfortable in a fast-moving, under-structured environment, willing to do the detailed work and build the function up.
• Strong interpersonal skills and the judgment to work effectively with founders and small teams that are new to formal finance.
• Willingness to travel to portfolio companies as needed, particularly in the early stand-up period.

Salary Range

Salary Range: $170-185k plus 20% bonus plan. Salary depends on skills, experience, education and overall qualifications.