Strategic Finance

AfterQuery; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

AfterQuery is seeking its first finance hire to establish the finance function from the ground up. The role will involve developing financial infrastructure, managing costs, and optimizing cash flow for a fast-growing AI business.

Ideal candidates should have strategic finance experience, strong financial modeling skills, and a knack for building systems. This is a unique opportunity to work closely with the founding team in a rapidly evolving field.

Qualifications

• 3+ years’ experience in finance operations for software or AI businesses.
• Strong finance fundamentals from investment banking or private equity.
• Highly organized and systems thinker.

Responsibilities

• Develop and maintain financial model and cash flow forecasts.
• Design financial systems across accounts payable/receivable.
• Track top expenses and customer payment reconciliation.

Skills

Strategic finance experience

Corporate finance fundamentals

Financial modeling skills

Operational workflows

Job description

About AfterQuery

AfterQuery is an applied research lab curating data solutions for foundation model development.

We serve every frontier AI lab with the mission of delivering the best data to power the best models. In doing so, we can make expertise that once took a lifetime to build available to anyone who needs it. Our customers are the ones building the foundation models themselves and our work sits directly in the loop of how those systems improve.

This is a rare opportunity to join a company at a defining moment in AI. Since raising our $30M Series A at a $300M valuation, AfterQuery has grown well over a $100M revenue run rate.

We're based in San Francisco and backed by leading investors including Altos Ventures, BoxGroup, and Y Combinator and angels from Google DeepMind, OpenAI, Anthropic, Meta Superintelligence Labs, and Microsoft AI and are based in San Francisco.

About The Role

As AfterQuery’s first finance hire, you’ll build the entire finance function from scratch. We’re looking for someone with high agency who wants real ownership and impact from day one. You’ll work directly with the founding team, create the systems that let us scale, and bring clarity and alignment internally. This is an opportunity to build a finance and growth playbook to a financially complex, profitable, and fast-growing business.

Your role will be to build rigorous financial infrastructure that creates visibility into our business. There is a set of unique financial challenges at AfterQuery:

• Manage and track costs: Millions of monthly costs across API spend, compute spend, contractor payments, and internal expenses

• Customer payment tracking and working capital: Navigating working capital dynamics and payment tracking across our AI lab customers (frontier AI labs, big tech cos, and neolabs)

• Optimize financing structures and cash flow: You’ll help think through how we capitalize and structure a scaled, cash-producing business

• Rationalize a lumpy, large-contract revenue model: Business model that requires thoughtful financial modeling

What You'll Do

• Financial Reporting & Analysis:

  • Develop, own and maintain the company’s financial model, budget, and cash flow forecasts; produce investor‑ready reporting and support financing preparation.

  • Design and manage financial systems and processes from scratch, across accounts payable/receivable, invoicing, and vendor payments.

  • Track and optimize our top expenses, streamlining the things that make our business complex: API and compute spend, contractor payments, and all internal expenses.

  • Manage customer (AI lab) payment tracking and reconciliation.

  • Coordinate with external accountants and legal counsel on bookkeeping, tax filings, and compliance.

• Strategic Finance:

  • Define, track and report on key business metrics and KPIs to the founding team.

  • Draw insights from trends and advise on how to invest to grow our business.

  • Research benchmarks from companies we admire to inform internal decisions, competitive insights, and strategic planning.

  • Hire, train, and onboard additional finance team members with founding team (e.g., accounting, treasury, department‑specific) as we grow.

• Bonus: Sales Finance / Business Development:

  • For the right person, this role can extend into our BD workstreams, supporting contract processes for data deals and working alongside the sales and customer engagement team to structure deals.

What We're Looking For

• 3+ years’ experience in strategic finance or finance operations for software‑led, AI, or other hyper‑scaling businesses.

• Strong corporate finance fundamentals and accounting fundamentals, ideally built through investment banking, private equity, startup operator, and/or academic finance background.

• Strong financial modeling skills; comfortable building and maintaining budgets, financial statements, and forecasts.

• Experience with core operational workflows: vendor management, procurement, billing/invoicing, and contract administration.

• Highly organized and systems thinker, with a knack for writing playbooks where none exist yet.

• Comfort with ambiguity and context-switching. You can negotiate enterprise compute contracts on our behalf, redline with Legal departments, and explain internal expenses all in one afternoon.

• A strong bias toward action; you’ll build and iterate rather than wait for perfect information.

We’re not biased towards junior or senior candidates. What matters is finding someone who’s high IQ, ready to roll up their sleeves and own our finance function from day one.

Compensation Structure

Total compensation package is competitive and commensurate with experience and candidacy.