FinOps Operational Cost Control, Director

FinOps Weekly; Seattle (WA); On-site; USD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Extra days off for well-being

401(k) retirement savings plan with 3%

Maternity and parental leave

Mental health support through Modern  

Full health benefits

Job summary

Sysdig is seeking a Director of FinOps Operational Cost Control to lead cloud cost transparency, governance, and cost-to-serve insights across a multi-cloud environment. You will partner with engineering, product, and finance leadership to drive cost savings and establish governance for AI/GPU compute, telemetry pipelines, and data retention.

The role is highly visible, cross-functional, and centered on reporting, dashboards, and accountability to keep cloud spend disciplined while supporting

Qualifications

• 8+ years in FinOps, cloud cost optimization, or operational cost management.
• Proven experience leading enterprise-wide cost initiatives.
• Demonstrated success reducing cloud or hosting spend at scale in AWS, GCP, or Azure.
• Strong understanding of unit economics and translating infrastructure costs into business metrics.

Responsibilities

• Own cloud and hosting cost transparency through reporting and dashboards focused on unit economics and cost drivers by product, team, and workload.
• Partner with engineering teams to identify and implement cost reduction opportunities, including rightsizing and architecture improvements.
• Establish cost governance for AI/GPU compute and data retention in partnership with Security and Compliance.
• Translate infrastructure spending into cost-to-serve and gross-margin metrics to inform pricing and competitive strategy.
• Build cross-functional accountability across Finance, Product, and Engineering leadership.
• Embed with engineering teams to promote cost-aware architecture patterns and recurring cost review cadences.

Skills

FinOps

Cloud cost optimization

Unit economics

Governance

AWS/GCP/Azure

Cross-functional leadership

Cost reporting

Autonomy in leadership role

Tools

FOCUS framework

Job description

FinOps Operational Cost Control, Director

Sysdig is hiring a Director for FinOps Operational Cost Control to help improve cloud cost transparency and strengthen cost governance across a large-scale, multi-cloud environment. This role is focused on turning infrastructure spend into clear unit economics, cost-to-serve, and gross-margin insights that support pricing and competitive decisions.

The position partners closely with engineering, finance, product, and leadership teams to identify cost-saving opportunities and drive them to closure. It also plays a key role in building governance for AI/GPU compute, telemetry pipelines, and data retention decisions as these capabilities scale.

This is a highly visible, cross-functional role with responsibility for creating reporting, dashboards, and accountability mechanisms that keep cost initiatives moving and ensure cloud spend is managed with discipline.

Key Responsibilities

• Own cloud and hosting cost transparency through reporting and dashboards focused on unit economics and cost drivers by product, team, and workload.
• Partner with engineering teams to identify and implement cost reduction opportunities, including rightsizing, reserved capacity, architecture improvements, and non-production environment efficiency.
• Establish cost governance for AI/GPU compute and security telemetry pipelines, including data retention and lifecycle decisions in partnership with Security and Compliance.
• Manage cost and pricing tradeoffs across a multi-cloud, multi-region environment, including data transfer, residency, and compliance costs.
• Translate infrastructure spending into cost-to-serve and gross-margin metrics to inform pricing and competitive strategy.
• Work with engineering leadership on a regular cadence to advance cost initiatives and report realized savings.
• Embed with engineering teams to promote cost-aware architecture patterns, automated tagging hygiene, and recurring cost review processes.
• Build cross-functional accountability and governance across Finance, Product, and Engineering leadership.

Required Skills

• 8+ years of experience in FinOps, cloud cost optimization, or operational cost management.
• Proven experience leading enterprise-wide cost initiatives and influencing cross-functional leaders.
• Demonstrated success reducing cloud or hosting spend at scale in AWS, GCP, or Azure.
• Strong understanding of unit economics and the ability to translate technical infrastructure costs into actionable business metrics.
• Experience building governance processes and cross-functional accountability structures.
• Comfort operating with significant autonomy in a highly visible role.
• Experience working with Finance, Product, and Engineering leadership.
• Experience optimizing GPU/AI compute costs and/or high-volume data pipeline costs.
• Deep familiarity with multi-cloud architectures and large-scale data ingestion or telemetry pipelines.

Preferred Skills

• FinOps Certified Practitioner (FOCP).
• Equivalent hands‑on FinOps experience.
• Familiarity with the FOCUS (FinOps Open Cost and Usage Specification) framework.

FinOps Platforms / Frameworks

• FOCUS (FinOps Open Cost and Usage Specification)

Infrastructure / Workload Areas

• Multi-cloud architectures
• Multi-region infrastructure
• GPU / AI compute
• Security telemetry pipelines
• Large-scale data ingestion pipelines

FinOps Responsibilities

• Build reporting and dashboards for cloud and hosting cost transparency.
• Analyze unit economics and cost drivers by product, team, and workload.
• Identify and execute cloud cost savings opportunities.
• Improve rightsizing and reserved capacity utilization.
• Evaluate architecture changes that reduce spend.
• Improve efficiency in non-production environments.
• Establish governance for AI/GPU compute costs.
• Make data retention and lifecycle decisions for telemetry pipelines in partnership with Security and Compliance.
• Manage tradeoffs between cost, pricing, data transfer, residency, and compliance.
• Translate infrastructure costs into cost-to-serve and gross-margin metrics.
• Track and report cost savings delivered.
• Maintain automated tagging hygiene and recurring cost review cadences.

• Extra days off for well‑being.
• 401(k) retirement savings plan with a 3% company match.
• Maternity and parental leave.
• Mental health support for employees and their families through the Modern Health app.
• Full health benefits for employees and their families.

Useful Links

• LinkedIn Job Posting: https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/4485618572
• Privacy Notice: https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/681a1c8e5b6ebfc0f8529533/683d7a57fc05b32bae08c0f9_sysdig-global-employee-privacy-notice.pdf

Why You Might Be Interested

This role offers the opportunity to shape cloud cost strategy at scale in a highly visible leadership position. The work spans FinOps, engineering partnership, and business metrics, with direct influence on pricing and margin decisions. It also includes ownership of AI/GPU compute cost governance and multi-cloud cost management, which adds technical depth and strategic scope. For professionals who enjoy building accountability, driving savings, and translating infrastructure spend into business outcomes, this is a compelling opportunity.