Finance & Strategy, Compute

United States Digital Space LLC; San Francisco (CA); Hybrid; USD 190,000 - 240,000; Full time

Job summary

United States Digital Space LLC seeks a Strategic Finance Lead to guide accelerator investments and provide financial leadership for compute spend. You will build models from unit economics of training to long-range planning, owning budgeting, forecasting, and scenario analyses.

The role requires translating complex AI dynamics into clear financial narratives for leadership. You will partner with engineering and research teams to optimize compute contracts, pricing, and capacity planning, while

Qualifications

• 7+ years of experience in strategic finance, infrastructure investment, private equity, growth equity, consulting, or investment banking
• 3+ years of experience specifically in cloud infrastructure financial management
• Experience with major cloud providers (AWS, GCP, Azure)
• Deep expertise in cloud provider economics, contract structures, and pricing models
• Experience with chip architecture economics and optimization strategies
• Proficiency with financial modeling tools and languages (SQL, Python, Excel)
• MBA or advanced degree in finance, economics, or business

Responsibilities

• Finance lead for cloud accelerator compute spend, including budgeting, monthly forecasting, variance analysis, and financial plan maintenance
• Build and maintain bottoms-up data-driven financial models for accelerator infrastructure, including long-range forecasts and cost driver analyses
• Develop expertise in compute contracts, pricing structures, and surface optimization opportunities across infrastructure
• Own source of truth and plan of record for compute capacity planning
• Support implementation and management of financial planning tools (e.g., Pigment)
• Analyze economics of model training and research compute, including ROI across dimensions
• Partner with engineering and research teams to translate technical dynamics into financial frameworks

Skills

Exceptional analytical skills

Problem solving

Attention to detail

Cross-functional communication

Partnership with technical teams

Bias toward action

Work ethic

Relationship building

Communication skills

Education

Bachelor's degree

MBA or advanced degree in finance/economics/business

Tools

SQL

Python

Excel

Job description

About the company

the company’s mission is to create reliable, interpretable, and steerable AI systems. We want AI to be safe and beneficial for our users and for society as a whole. Our team is a quickly growing group of committed researchers, engineers, policy experts, and business leaders working together to build beneficial AI systems.

About the role

We are seeking a Strategic Finance Lead to provide finance leadership for our accelerator investments. In this role, you will be a key partner to our compute teams, providing financial expertise and guidance to optimize our compute investments and drive strategic decision-making.

In this role, you’ll develop deep expertise in the economics of AI compute, from the unit economics of individual training runs to the long-range financial planning of our accelerator fleet. You’ll build financial models that inform the company’s investment decisions, own planning and forecasting processes for major cost centers, and translate complex technical dynamics into clear financial narratives for leadership.

This is a high-impact role for someone who thrives at the intersection of finance and technology, and who is energized by building frameworks from scratch in a fast-moving environment.

Key responsibilities

• Finance lead for cloud accelerator compute spend, including budgeting, monthly forecasting, variance analysis, and financial plan maintenance


• Build and maintain detailed bottoms-up data-driven financial models for accelerator infrastructure, including long-range forecasts, cost driver analyses, and investment scenario modeling


• Develop deep expertise in compute contracts, pricing structures, and cost drivers, and surface optimization opportunities across our infrastructure


• Serve as subject matter expert for the company’s overall compute capacity plan, owning source of truth and plan of record


• Support the implementation and management of financial planning tools (e.g., Pigment), ensuring our models and processes scale with the organization


• Analyze the economics of model training and research compute, including ROI across different dimensions like training run sizes, chip types, data, etc, and distill into actionable framework for capacity planning and deployment


• Partner closely with engineering and research teams to understand how training and reinforcement learning processes scale, and translate those technical dynamics into financial frameworks

You may be a good fit if you have:

• Exceptional analytical skills with an ability to synthesize data into compelling insights and develop complex financial operating models


• Extraordinary problem-solving and critical thinking abilities to come up with new frameworks for assessing profitability and capital efficiency in a rapidly evolving industry


• Attention to detail and patience for getting to the source of truth on complex and interconnected underlying financial and legal frameworks


• Comfort working cross-functionally and are adept at communicating complex financial information to non-finance audiences


• Proven track record of partnering with technical teams to drive financial optimization initiatives


• Excitement about working collaboratively in a fast-paced, dynamic environment and adapt well to change


• Possess a bias towards action, strong work ethic, and have experience driving operational outcomes under tight timelines


• Strong relationship building, business judgment, process management, and communication skills


• Are passionate about the company's mission to build safe, transformative AI systems


• Are passionate about the effective integration of AI tools to streamline manual finance workflows


• Background in AI, ML, or high-performance, large-scale computing infrastructure, including data centers, cloud service providers, etc

Preferred qualifications

• 7+ years of experience in strategic finance, infrastructure investment, private equity, growth equity, consulting, or investment banking, preferably with infrastructure, datacenter, or technology infrastructure experience


• 3+ years of experience specifically in cloud infrastructure financial management


• Experience working directly with major cloud service providers (AWS, GCP, Azure)


• MBA or other advanced degree in finance, economics, or business


• Deep expertise in cloud service provider economics, contract structures, and pricing models


• Experience with chip architecture economics and optimization strategies


• Proficiency with financial modeling tools and languages (SQL, Python, Excel)

The annual compensation range for this role is listed below.

For sales roles, the range provided is the role’s On Target Earnings (\"OTE\") range, meaning that the range includes both the sales commissions/sales bonuses target and annual base salary for the role.

Annual Salary:

$190,000-$240,000 USD

LogisticsMinimum education: Bachelor’s degree or an equivalent combination of education, training, and/or experienceRequired field of study:A field relevant to the role as demonstrated through coursework, training, or professional experienceMinimum years of experience: Years of experience required will correlate with the internal job level requirements for the positionLocation-based hybrid policy: Currently, we expect all staff to be in one of our offices at least 25% of the time. However, some roles may require more time in our offices.Visa sponsorship:We do sponsor visas! However, we aren't able to successfully sponsor visas for every role and every candidate. But if we make you an offer, we will make every reasonable effort to get you a visa, and we retain an immigration lawyer to help with this.

We think AI systems like the ones we're building have enormous social and ethical implications. We think this makes representation even more important, and we strive to include a range of diverse perspectives on our team.