Strategic Finance Lead, R&D
TRM Labs
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Job summary
TRM Labs is seeking a Strategic Finance Lead for AI & R&D to shape how we invest in AI, cloud, and compute infrastructure. You will partner with the CTO and R&D leaders to build driver‑based models, forecast spend, and drive funding decisions that accelerate product velocity while controlling costs.
You will own the financial architecture for R&D, create actionable investment cases, and work across Engineering, Product, Data, AI, and Infrastructure to deliver clear, data‑driven recommendations.
Qualifications
- 7+ years across strategic finance, FP&A, business operations, or a related role.
- Experience owning end‑to‑end work: framing questions, structuring analysis, forming a point of view, driving recommendations.
- Strong data‑informed modeling skills, including driver‑based forecasts and capacity models.
- Hands‑on experience analyzing cloud, compute, AI, or other usage‑based technology costs.
Responsibilities
- Define TRM's AI spend strategy with the CTO and AI leadership.
- Build an AI‑assisted driver‑based forecast covering cloud usage and costs.
- Own planning, forecasting, and the headcount capacity model with automated workflows.
- Develop investment cases and track ROI for AI/R&D initiatives.
- Partner with Engineering, Product, Data, and Infrastructure leaders to align financial plans with product strategy.
Skills
Tools
Job description
T R M L a b s i s t h e i n t e l l i g e n c e p l a t f o r m f o r p u b l i c s a f e t y a n d n a t i o n a l s e c u r i t y , b u i l t t o d e t e c t a n d d i s r u p t t h e c r i m i n a l n e t w o r k s t h a t e x p l o i t f r o n t i e r t e c h n o l o g i e s f o r t h e p u r p o s e s o f h a r m . O u r A I I n v e s t i g a t i o n s p l a t f o r m b r i n g s t o g e t h e r i n t e l l i g e n c e f r o m d o z e n s o f p r e v i o u s l y d i s p a r a t e s o u r c e s t o l i n k o n l i n e a c t i v i t y t o g l o b a l s e c u r i t y t h r e a t s , g i v i n g i n v e s t i g a t o r s a h o l i s t i c p i c t u r e o f c r i m i n a l a c t i v i t y s o t h e y c a n d i s r u p t i t a t m a c h i n e s p e e d .
O u r c u s t o m e r s u s e o u r t e c h n o l o g y t o c r e a t e a s a f e r w o r l d . O u r t e a m c o m b i n e s e x p e r t i s e f r o m l a w e n f o r c e m e n t , d a t a s c i e n c e , e n g i n e e r i n g , a n d f i n a n c i a l i n t e l l i g e n c e t o c o m b a t t e r r o r i s t f i n a n c i n g , d r u g t r a f f i c k i n g , h u m a n t r a f f i c k i n g , a n d o t h e r s e r i o u s c r i m e s . H e r e , y o u ' l l j o i n a m i s s i o n - d r i v e n , f a s t - p a c e d e n v i r o n m e n t w h e r e i n n o v a t i o n d r i v e s r e a l i m p a c t . W h e t h e r y o u ' r e a n a l y z i n g b l o c k c h a i n d a t a , d e v e l o p i n g c u t t i n g - e d g e s o f t w a r e , o r p a r t n e r i n g w i t h g l o b a l o r g a n i z a t i o n s , e a c h d a y b r i n g s f r e s h c h a l l e n g e s a n d o p p o r t u n i e s t o m a k e a m e a n f u l d i f f e r e n c e i n s t a l l i n g c r i m i n a l a c t i v i t y .
Kyle Armstrong
Director of Law Enforcement Relations
"My career has been about expanding impact — from handling single cases at the FBI, to supporting investigations nationwide in the Virtual Assets Unit, and now at TRM, helping law enforcement globally. Through Beacon Network, we’ve built something neither the private nor public sector could do alone: a dynamic partnership driving real action against illicit crypto activity worldwide."
Chris Wong
“At TRM, data isn’t just part of the process—it’s the very core of our existence, making it incredibly exciting for a data engineer like me to contribute where everything begins with data.”
Staff Software Engineer (Data Platform)
“Every day, I get to work with experts across law enforcement, engineering and law who share a mission to create a safer world for people. We actually fight bad guys, and help the good guys win.”
Assistant General Counsel
“I've spent my entire career working to protect the financial system from illicit actors, and now I get to do it on a bigger scale, alongside those who are the very best in the world at what they do, building something really special together.“
Ari Redbord
Global Head of Policy
“By coming to TRM from the FBI, I’ve been able to scale my impact of combatting ransomware and nurturing collaboration between the public and private sectors.”
“I get to work with some of the smartest people I’ve ever met from 30+ countries, and we spend all day figuring out how to help combat drug trafficking/terrorist financing/elder scams/etc. I can’t imagine anything more fulfilling.”
Kevin Tran
Data Science Team Manager
“Some people in tech spend every weekday working on products that are not really making the world a better place. I get so much satisfaction spending my time looking for the smartest people I can find, and saying ‘Would you like work at a company that is making the world a safer place?”
Head of Talent
“In my previous life in the public sector, there was a lot of bureaucracy that slowed down my ability to make an impact. Thats not the case at TRM, people here have high ownership and see through their projects. It’s so rewarding.”
“The product we’re building is making a real impact on peoples lives; and I get to build this alongside smart, passionate humans who push me to get better at my craft.”
Jenny Gai
Senior Product Marketing Manager
“I can tell you the exact reason I decided to join TRM. When I was conducting my job search, I was evaluating 3 offers and all were in the start-up space. What stood out to me about TRM was very similar criteria to a previous start-up I joined that went public; it has bleeding edge technology, solid funding, very smart people and was experiencing hyper growth. That equation adds up to success.”
“I was most excited to join TRM because of our mission, but I didn’t realize how much I’d love working with this team. At TRM, we have a culture of supportive teamwork and close collaboration. My colleagues are some of the most interesting, high-integrity and high-achieving people I know. I’m inspired just by working alongside them.”
Kinsey Cronin
Terry Carson
Data Scientist
"TRM offers an unparalleled and remarkable experience. Working at a company with a strong mission in a fast-paced industry is incredibly motivating—especially when you can directly see the difference your efforts make in the real world."
Accounting Manager
“Moving to the private sector from law enforcement can be quite challenging. I think one of the things that I struggled with, and is quite common, is that the move to the private sector often comes with a change in identity and lost purpose. But then I found TRM, and thats one of the reasons I really love it here- we've still got that purpose. I still get to work alongside law enforcement every day, and I still get to help catch bad guys — but now I just do it on a more global scale.”
Head of Deployment Strategy, APAC
“TRM is a place where I, and others, experience a safe environment to openly challenge ideas, which ultimately helps me learn and grow in my career”
Staff Software Engineer
“At our last company All Hands, we covered two recent cases where law enforcement had leveraged TRM - one helping stop an ISIS terrorist attack, and another helping stop a child sexual abuse operation. I love TRM not just because the people are brilliant, but because we dedicate our time to impact like this.”
TRM brings together experts in machine learning, data science, anti-fraud and compliance to crack complex problems and build future-proofed solutions for pre-eminent organizations and public agencies around the world.
Full time
Remote
G&A Finance FP&A
TRM Labs provides AI-powered intelligence solutions that help public and private sector agencies investigate and disrupt crime. TRM's platforms enable investigators to trace illicit activity, build cases, and construct operating pictures of threat networks. Leading agencies and businesses worldwide rely on TRM to make the world safer and more secure.
TRM is hiring a Strategic Finance Lead, AI & R&D to help decide how the company invests in AI, cloud and compute infrastructure, and the engineering capacity behind its products. You'll be the dedicated finance partner to the CTO and R&D leadership, turning complex usage, billing, and headcount data into recommendations that shape major investment decisions before they're made. Reporting to Pharoah Green, Head of Strategic Finance and FP&A, within the FP&A and Strategic Finance Business Partnership function, you'll design the financial architecture for R&D from the ground up, with AI built into how the work gets done.
The impact you will have:
Shape how TRM invests in AI, cloud, and compute by building an AI-assisted, driver-based economic model that connects usage and billing data across hundreds of SKUs to forecasts and decisions.
Lower R&D costs as a % of revenue without slowing product velocity, using AI to surface optimization opportunities in infrastructure spend and partnering with Engineering to act on them.
Define TRM's AI spend strategy with the Head of AI, using AI-powered analysis to track spend against ROI by tool and workload and to recommend where to commit, consolidate, or build.
Give R&D leaders an early view of change by owning planning, forecasting, and the headcount capacity model, with automated workflows that flag risks while there is still time to act.
Influence major infrastructure and R&D commitments by leading investment cases from business case to decision to measurement, with AI-assisted scenario analysis that makes tradeoffs clear.
Turn R&D performance into a clear executive and board narrative: what changed, why, and which decisions should follow.
Rebuild R&D finance around AI, automation, and Pigment so more time goes to shaping decisions and less to assembling reports.
What we're looking for:
7+ years across strategic finance, FP&A, business operations, or a related role. We care more about the complexity you've owned and the influence you've had than an exact number of years.
A record of owning consequential work end to end: framing an ambiguous question, structuring the analysis, forming a point of view, and driving a recommendation to action.
Strong data-informed modeling skills, including driver-based forecasts, investment cases, and capacity models built from incomplete or complex data, accelerated with AI.
Hands‑on experience analyzing cloud, compute, AI, or other usage‑based technology costs, and experience partnering with Engineering, Product, Data, AI, or Infrastructure leaders.
The judgment and communication skills to become a trusted partner to senior technical leaders, challenge assumptions constructively, and explain financial implications in plain language.
Applied AI fluency: you can show how you've used AI to improve the speed or quality of modeling, research, or recurring workflows, and how you check the reliability of its output.
Curiosity to learn technical systems quickly and translate how AI products and modern infrastructure scale into financial insight.
About the Team:
Strategic Finance is a small, high‑leverage team that works directly with TRM's leadership on planning, investment decisions, and company‑wide strategy.
Our job isn't just to explain the numbers. We collaborate with leaders to make better decisions, and we hold a high bar for rigor and trust in our work.
You'll have substantial ownership from day one, direct exposure to the CTO and executive team, and room to shape how R&D finance operates.
The role is built to scale with its owner. Using AI and automation, you can expand what one person owns, and as the mandate grows there may be an opportunity to build a team.
Team Operating Rhythms:
We're distributed, not distant: written communication for clarity and context, live time for decisions and collaboration.
Regular working sessions with the CTO and R&D leaders, plus a monthly R&D cost and forecast review.
Quarterly planning with Talent and R&D on headcount capacity, and annual planning cycles in Pigment.
Slack and Notion for async updates; AI tools are part of the daily workflow.
Learn about TRM Speed in this position:
Within your first 30 days, deliver an initial AI‑assisted cloud forecast, focused on GCP with AWS coverage as applicable, that gives R&D leaders their first driver‑based view of where infrastructure spend is heading.
Within your first 60 days, put a defined AI spend strategy in front of the CTO, with a clear recommendation on where to commit, consolidate, or cut.
Within your first 90 days, have the R&D capacity model integrated into the planning process so hiring decisions and budget move together.
Your recruiter will share your specific interview plan and preparation guidance along the way.
We are building a safer world. That promise shows up in how we work every day.
TRM moves quickly. We are a high velocity, high ownership team that expects clarity, follow‑through, and impact. People who thrive here are energized by hard problems, experimentation, and continuous feedback. If something takes months elsewhere, it will ship here in days.
Our work sits at the intersection of AI, national security, and fighting crime. The problems are complex, the stakes are real, and the environment evolves quickly. The pace and intensity of the work reflect the importance of the mission. As a result, the way we operate requires a high level of ownership, adaptability, collaboration, and creative problem‑solving.
At TRM, you should expect:
Priorities and targets to change quickly as we experiment and iterate
Work that often requires operating with a high degree of ambiguity
A high level of personal ownership and accountability
Close collaboration across teams and functions
Frequent, high‑touch communication
Creative problem solving and out‑of‑the‑box thinking
A pace that rewards urgency, adaptability, and outcomes
This environment is energizing for people who enjoy building, solving hard problems, and making progress in situations that are not always fully defined. It also requires comfort navigating ambiguity, adjusting course as new information emerges, and maintaining focus and positivity in a fast‑moving and intense environment.
We also recognize that this style of operating is not for everyone. If you are primarily optimizing for predictability or a consistently balanced workload, we encourage you to use the interview process to pressure test whether this environment is truly the right fit. We want teammates who thrive here, not just survive here.
At the same time, many people find this work deeply rewarding. If you are excited by meaningful problems, motivated by ambitious goals, and energized by working alongside mission‑driven colleagues, there is a good chance you will find TRM to be an exceptional place to growth and contribute. Learn more about Interviewing at TRM
AI fluency is a baseline expectation at TRM.
We believe AI meaningfully changes how top performers operate. We expect every team member to use AI to accelerate and reimagine their craft, not just automate surface tasks.
At TRM, AI fluency means you are among the top 10 percent of operators in your function in how you apply AI to:
Accelerate repeatable workflows
Structure and solve problems
Increase speed and leverage
You will be evaluated on applied AI fluency during the interview process.
We hire and grow against three leadership principles. They’re the standards for how we operate, treat each other, and make decisions.
Impact‑Oriented Trailblazer: We put customers first and move with speed, focus, and adaptability. We treat every plan like an experiment – test, ship, measure, and iterate quickly.
Master Craftsperson: We care deeply about our craft. We balance speed with high standards, own outcomes end‑to‑end, and invest in getting better everyday.
Inspiring Colleague: We add clarity and energy, not noise. We bring humility, candor, and a one‑team mindset — giving and receiving feedback to make the team stronger.
At TRM, we care deeply about our craft. We are looking for individuals who want their work to matter, who experiment with speed and rigor, and who take pride in building a safer world for billions of people. If you’re excited by TRM’s mission but don’t check every box, we encourage you to apply — we hire for slope, judgment, and the will to learn fast.
TRM is a Series C company with $220M in total funding, backed by Goldman Sachs, Bessemer, Y Combinator, Thoma Bravo, and others. Headquartered in San Francisco, TRM operates as a distributed‑first company with hubs in Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, Washington D.C., London, and Singapore. Learn more about building tools for defenders .
By submitting your application, you agree to allow TRM Labs to process your personal information in accordance with our Privacy Policy .
We collect the information you provide (such as your resume, work history, and contact details) solely for the purpose of evaluating your candidacy for current and future roles at TRM.
Because our hiring cycles for certain positions may span 24 to 36 months, we retain your personal information for up to 36 months from the date of your application. After that period, your data is deleted unless a different retention period is required or permitted by law.
If you are located in the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom, or another jurisdiction with applicable data protection laws, you have the right to access, correct, or request deletion of your personal data at any time before that period ends. To exercise any of these rights, contact us at privacy@trmlabs.com .
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The use of AI tools of any kind (including but not limited to notetakers, interview assistants, and real‑time coaching tools such as Otter.ai, Fireflies, Fathom, Cluey, or similar) during TRM interviews is not permitted without prior approval from TRM. TRM uses its own internal tools for note‑taking to ensure a consistent and confidential experience for all candidates.
We are committed to providing reasonable accommodations to applicants with disabilities, and requests can be made via this form .
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