FinOps Leader: Cloud Spend & Cost Optimization

Plaid; United States; On-site; USD 140,000 - 210,000; Full time

Job summary

Plaid is building the tools and experiences that thousands of developers use to connect their financial accounts to apps and services. The FinOps function drives accountability, visibility, and optimization across engineering spend, enabling teams to balance cost with velocity while preserving innovation and velocity.

The team collaborates with Engineering, Product, and Finance to forecast spend, justify investments, and implement cost controls that align with Plaid's business priorities.

Qualifications

• 6–10+ years experience at the intersection of engineering, data, or finance in cloud-native or SaaS.
• Proven experience partnering with engineering teams on cloud infrastructure, data platforms, AI/ML workloads, or SaaS spend.
• Experience forecasting budgets, tracking AI/ML spend, and identifying cost-optimization opportunities.
• Strong cost analysis, forecasting, budgeting, and variance management skills.
• Ability to translate data into clear, actionable insights for engineers, PMs, and executives.
• Comfort writing SQL or using AI-assisted tools to explore datasets and answer questions.
• Experience building clear dashboards and BI artifacts for engineers and leaders.
• Demonstrated success driving adoption of cost-awareness in engineering workflows.

Responsibilities

• Monitors and analyzes engineering spend across cloud, AI/ML, data platforms, and SaaS.
• Builds and maintains forecasts for engineering spend with drivers, assumptions, and risks.
• Partners with engineering, product, and TPMs to embed cost considerations in roadmaps and designs.
• Leads cost optimization initiatives and workload efficiency improvements with engineering owners.
• Creates dashboards and reports that are understandable and actionable for engineers and executives.
• Implements FinOps practices including showback/chargeback and unit economics.
• Collaborates on tooling to improve cost visibility and forecasting accuracy.
• Drove alignment and behavior change balancing cost with performance and velocity.

Skills

Cost analysis

Forecasting

Budgeting

Data storytelling

Stakeholder communication

SQL

BI dashboards

Cross-functional collaboration

FinOps

Tools

AWS Cost Explorer

GCP Billing

Tableau

Looker

Mode

Job description

Plaid is building the tools and experiences that thousands of developers use to connect their financial accounts to apps and services. The FinOps function drives accountability, visibility, and optimization across engineering spend, enabling teams to balance cost with velocity while preserving innovation and velocity.

The team collaborates with Engineering, Product, and Finance to forecast spend, justify investments, and implement cost controls that align with Plaid's business priorities.