Finance Manager (Cost & Operations Analytics)

VAST Data; Campbell (CA); On-site; USD 110,000 - 150,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading technology company in California is seeking a Finance Manager for its Operations Finance team. This role focuses on Financial Planning & Analysis (FP&A), budgeting, and managing hardware service operations. The successful candidate will thrive in a fast-paced environment and possess over 5 years of experience in COGS and inventory FP&A. Responsibilities include financial modeling, data stewardship, and driving the transition to automated dashboards. This position promises a significant impact on the company's operational stability and efficiency.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of experience in COGS and inventory FP&A, ideally within a hardware supply chain environment.
• Strong analytical and quantitative skills.
• Proven ability to manage complex workstreams with minimal oversight.

Responsibilities

• Own the end-to-end FP&A for Operations, including OPEX and COGS management.
• Lead the budgeting and tracking of costs incurred at Contract Manufacturers.
• Drive integration into automated data environments.

Skills

Analytical skills

Excellent Excel/Google Sheets skills

Budgeting & Tracking

Ability to manage complex workstreams

Familiarity with BI tools

Education

Bachelor’s degree in Finance or related field

Tools

Excel

Google Sheets

Tableau

Job description

VAST Data is seeking a Finance Manager to join our Operations Finance team as a core contributor in our mission to move from a reactive state to a stable, automated, and scalable infrastructure. You will own the foundational FP&A for hardware service operations, with a primary strategic mandate to lead the transition from manual data processes to automated financial integration. This role requires a professional who thrives in an outcome-focused environment, is highly analytical and can operate independently while integrating seamlessly across cross‑functional teams.

Primary Responsibilities (Core Ownership)

• Financial Planning & Analysis (FP&A)
• Budgeting & Tracking: Own the end‑to‑end FP&A for Operations, including OPEX and COGS management.
• Headcount Management: Manage hiring and headcount tracking for the Operations organization.
• CM Program Costs: Lead the budgeting and tracking of costs incurred at Contract Manufacturers (CMs).
• Validation: Own the actual Purchase Price Variance (PPV) analysis for vendor partners.
• Close Partnership: Partner closely with accounting to ensure timely and accurate reporting of actual results.
• Strategic Operational Modeling
• Depot Economics: Own the Depot Economics Model and lead financial analysis for all New Depot requests.
• Inventory Analysis: Manage Service Inventory financial modeling and provide insights into inventory‑related costs.
• Evaluate third‑party service providers: Compare outsourcing versus in‑house execution based on cost, efficiency, and operational impact.
• Unit economics of hardware support costs.
• Data Stewardship & Automation
• ETL Transformation: Act as the steward for manual Extract, Transform, and Load (ETL) processes across Ops Finance, driving their integration into automated data environments.
• Scalability: Partner with the Team Lead to build stable infrastructure that eliminates manual reporting and improves the accuracy of Service Ops COGS models.
• Quarter End Sales Support
• Service Level Agreements: Ensure the team maintains a 24‑hour SLA for hardware pricing, discounts, and CM special terms.
• Special Pricing Requests: Support special pricing analysis and decision making

Qualifications

• Comfortable operating in high‑growth, fast‑paced environments with shifting priorities.
• Bachelor’s degree in Finance, Accounting, Computer Science, Mathematics, or a related field.
• 5+ years of experience in COGS and inventory FP&A, ideally within a hardware supply chain environment.
• Strong analytical and quantitative skills with the ability to distill complex data into actionable insights.
• Proven ability to manage complex workstreams with minimal oversight, focusing on results rather than task lists.
• Ability to build documentation that provides transparency and speeds up decision‑making for stakeholders.
• Advanced experience with transitioning from manual reporting into automated dashboards.
• Excellent Excel/Google Sheets skills including pivot tables, nested formulas, INDEX/Match, dynamic ranges, etc. Macros/VBA, scenario analysis & sensitivity modeling. Driver‑based forecast models (lead – pipeline – sales – revenue – cash). Ability to pull from databases (NetSuite).
• Familiarity with BI tools (e.g. Tableau).