Senior Director, R&D Planning & Operations

Okta; Bellevue (IL); Hybrid; USD 250,000 - 310,000; Full time

Job summary

Okta seeks a seasoned operations leader to own the financial and workforce operating engine for the company’s Product & Technology organization, a 2,000+ person R&D function spanning ORD and Auth0. You will drive budget governance, headcount strategy and vendor operations in close partnership with Recruiting and FP&A.

The role reports to the Head of Strategy & Operations for R&D and requires hub-based presence in SF, Seattle, or Chicago with frequent office work.

Qualifications

• 12+ years of work experience with 6+ years in operations, FP&A, or engineering operations in tech.
• Proven ownership of a large engineering or R&D budget, annual planning, governance and exec reviews.
• Experience in workforce planning and headcount governance with Recruiting and Finance.
• Vendor portfolio management including contract negotiation, renewals and capacity planning.
• Hands-on Capitalized Software accounting and R&D tax credit programs (US/Canada).
• Strong understanding of B2B SaaS cost structures and operating models.
• Experience building and leading high-performing ops teams, incl. Directors.
• Ability to navigate complex data sets and make data-driven decisions with ambiguity.
• Proven use of AI to enhance finance/ops, reporting, and automation.

Responsibilities

• Own budget and workforce strategy for ORD and Auth0 in the R&D Operating Plan.
• Govern R&D budget, oversee program spend, variance reporting, and executive reviews.
• Own P&L framework for R&D lines of business and portfolio decisions.
• Model and optimize AI token spend; establish baselines and ROIs.
• Lead engineering cost modeling and partner on margin analysis for deals.
• Ensure R&D financial compliance, Capitalized Software entries, and tax credits.
• Build and own the Snowflake-based cost distribution data platform for engineering leaders.
• Lead workforce strategy with Recruiting, including headcount governance and location strategy.
• Oversee contingent workers program and vendor operations for R&D.
• Refine financial/operating processes for scalable growth.
• Collaborate with Product/Engineering to set OKRs and month/quarter cadences.
• Apply AI fluently to analytics, dashboards, and workflows; mentor the team.

Skills

Budget ownership

Workforce planning

Vendor management

Capitalized Software accounting

AI in operations

B2B SaaS finance

Education

MBA or Finance/Economics/Engineering undergrad

Tools

Snowflake

Self-service reporting

Job description

Secure Every Identity, from AI to Human

Identity is the key to unlocking the potential of AI. the company secures AI by building the trusted, neutral infrastructure that enables organizations to safely embrace this new era. This work requires a relentless drive to solve complex challenges with real-world stakes. We are looking for builders and owners who operate with speed and urgency and execute with excellence.

This is an opportunity to do career-defining work. We're all in on this mission. If you are too, let’s talk.

We are looking for a seasoned operations leader to run the financial and workforce operating engine for the company's Product & Technology organization — a 2,000+ person R&D function spanning the the company Platform (ORD) and Auth0. The team is accountable for the budget and workforce strategy components of the R&D Operating Plan, program spend and budget governance, financial compliance including Capitalized Software and R&D tax credit capture, vendor operations, and headcount governance in partnership with Recruiting. The team also runs the annual goal-setting process and the operating cadence that tracks R&D performance against those goals. This is a role that demands real depth in engineering finance operations alongside the organizational judgment to translate executive strategy into a defensible budget and a credible hiring plan.

This role sits within the company's R&D ("ORD") organization, reporting to the Head of Strategy & Operations and Chief of Staff to the President of the company R&D. This role is hub-based: it sits in San Francisco, Seattle or Chicago, and candidates must live within commutable distance of one of those offices. We expect this leader to work from the office multiple days each week.

Job Duties / What This Role Entails

• Own the budget and workforce strategy components of the R&D Operating Plan, translating corporate strategy and the long-range plan into a fully resourced annual plan across ORD and Auth0.

• Direct R&D budget governance for a 2,000+ person organization — program spend oversight, variance reporting, fiscal discipline, and executive-level budget reviews with the President of the company R&D and Finance leadership.

• Own and evolve the P&L framework for R&D lines of business, arming executive leadership with the cost and investment data behind portfolio decisions.

• Model, govern and optimize AI token spend across the P&T organization — establish the cost baseline and forecasting model, build the framework for measuring return on that spend, and partner with engineering leaders to drive efficiency as consumption scales.

• Lead engineering cost modeling, and partner with FP&A and Deal Desk on account-specific margin analysis to support pricing, packaging and large-deal decisions.

• Own financial compliance for R&D, including Capitalized Software entries and maximizing US/Canada R&D tax credit capture.

• Build and own the P&T expense data platform on Snowflake to enable clean line-of-business cost distribution and self-service cost visibility for engineering leaders.

• Set the fiscal year workforce strategy in partnership with Recruiting leadership — headcount governance, real-time allocation tracking, backfills, organizational growth mapping, and location strategy.

• Own the contingent workforce program end to end, including contractor and agency lifecycle, capacity and spend.

• Own vendor operations for R&D — third-party relationships, capacity management, contract renewals, and performance SLAs.

• Continuously refine the financial and workforce operating processes to eliminate friction and ensure the organization scales efficiently as it grows.

• Partner with Product and Engineering leadership to develop the fiscal year goals and OKRs for the R&D organization, and run the program cadence — monthly and quarterly reviews — that gauges performance against them.

• Set the standard for AI-first operations — apply AI to financial analysis, dashboard generation and workflow automation, and build a team for which AI fluency is core to how the work gets done rather than an experiment on the side.

• Build, mentor and develop the operations team as a source of durable advantage for the company R&D, including hiring and developing Director-level leaders.

This is a team leadership role with five direct reports.

Qualifications / Who You Are (Must Have)

• 12+ years of work experience, including 6+ years leading business operations, R&D / engineering operations, or FP&A functions within a technology company.

• Demonstrated ownership of an engineering or R&D budget at scale — annual planning, in-year governance, variance management, and executive budget review.

• Proven ownership of workforce planning and headcount governance in close partnership with Recruiting and Finance.

• Experience managing a vendor portfolio, including contract negotiation and renewal, SLA management, and capacity planning.

• Hands-on experience with Capitalized Software accounting and R&D tax credit programs in the US and/or Canada.

• Strong understanding of B2B SaaS business models and engineering cost structures.

• Track record of building and developing high-performing operations teams, including hiring and developing Director-level leaders.

• Extensive experience navigating complex data sets and operating with ambiguity, where clean data is not available.

• Demonstrated use of AI to do the substance of finance and operations work — analysis, reporting, dashboard generation and workflow automation — with a clear point of view on where to apply it next.

Qualifications / Who You Are (Good to Have)

• Experience operating across multiple product units or post-acquisition entities with distinct financial and operational systems.

• Familiarity with Snowflake, or comparable experience building financial data platforms and self-service reporting.

• Experience modeling or governing consumption-based spend, such as cloud infrastructure or AI / LLM token usage.

• Experience with global workforce and location strategy, including India-based engineering centers.

• Understanding of the B2B enterprise technology space, specifically Enterprise Security.

• Experience running an annual goal-setting or OKR process for a technology organization, including the review cadence that tracks progress against it.

• Prior experience in FP&A, management consulting, or a central strategy and operations function.

• MBA, or an undergraduate degree with a concentration in Finance, Economics, Statistics or Engineering.

Why this role?

• Own the full financial and workforce operating infrastructure for a 2,000+ person R&D organization at a category-defining security company.

• Rare breadth of charter: FinOps, workforce operations and vendor operations, across an at scale SaaS R&D organization.

• A genuinely new problem to own: defining how a 2,000+ person R&D organization budgets for, measures the return on, and optimizes its AI spend.

• Direct line of sight into executive decision making — your models and plans are the basis on which R&D investment is allocated.

• High degree of autonomy to shape the R&D operating model rather than inherit it.

• Strong executive sponsorship from the company's product and engineering leadership team.

Additional requirements

• There is no citizenship requirement. The the company employee must be on US Soil, which means the 50 s