Senior Director, R&D Planning & Operations

Find Operators; San Francisco (CA); Hybrid; USD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Job summary

Okta is seeking a Senior Director of R&D Planning & Operations to run the financial and workforce engine for ORD and Auth0, a 2,000+ person R&D function. You will own budgeting, workforce governance, capitalized software, and AI-driven financial analytics to enable strategic decisions and scale across multiple product lines.

You will partner with Product and Engineering to set goals, OKRs, and operating cadence, while building a resilient, data‑driven cost model and a scalable cost platform.

Qualifications

• 12+ years of work experience in technology, with 6+ years leading operations, R&D, or FP&A.
• Ownership of an engineering or R&D budget at scale with annual planning and governance.
• Experience in workforce planning in partnership with Recruiting and Finance.
• Vendor portfolio management including negotiations and renewals.
• Hands-on Capitalized Software accounting and R&D tax credit programs in US/Canada.
• Strong understanding of B2B SaaS cost structures and models.
• Proven track record building high-performing operations teams.
• Experience navigating complex data sets and operating under ambiguity, with AI-driven finance work.

Responsibilities

• Own budget and workforce strategy for the ORD and Auth0 R&D organizations.
• Lead R&D budget governance, program spend oversight, and executive reviews.
• Develop and evolve the P&L framework for R&D lines of business.
• Model and govern AI token spend and build ROI frameworks.
• Lead engineering cost modeling and collaborate on pricing and deals.
• Ensure financial compliance including Capitalized Software and tax credits.
• Build data platform for cost distribution and self-service visibility.
• Set annual workforce strategy with Recruiting and manage headcount governance.

Skills

Budget governance

R&D finance

Workforce planning

Vendor management

Capitalized Software

AI in finance

Data analysis

Leadership

FP&A

Education

MBA

Tools

Snowflake

Job description

Senior Director, R&D Planning & Operations

Secure Every Identity, from AI to Human

Identity is the key to unlocking the potential of AI. Okta 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 Okta’s Product & Technology organization - a 2,000+ person R&D function spanning the Okta 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 Okta’s R&D ("ORD") organization, reporting to the Head of Strategy & Operations and Chief of Staff to the President of Okta 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 Okta 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 Okta 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.