FinOps Program Manager

We believe that the way people interact with their finances will drastically improve in the next few years. Were dedicated to empowering this transformation by building the tools and experiences that thousands of developers use to create their own products. Plaid powers the tools millions of people rely on to live a healthier financial life. We work with thousands of companies like Venmo SoFi several of the Fortune 500 and many of the largest banks to make it easy for people to connect their financial accounts to the apps and services they want to use. Plaids network covers 12000 financial institutions across the US Canada UK and Europe. Founded in 2013 the company is headquartered in San Francisco with offices in New York Washington D.C. London and Amsterdam.

The FinOps function is responsible for financial accountability visibility and optimization across all engineering-related spend at Plaid. This includes cloud infrastructure AI/ML and data workloads third-party SaaS tools and other technical investments that support Plaids products and internal platforms.

The team operates at the intersection of Engineering Product and Finance ensuring that spending decisions are transparent intentional and aligned with product strategy and business priorities. Rather than functioning as a cost-control or approval layer FinOps enables teams to understand own and optimize their spend while maintaining engineering velocity.

Responsibilities

• Monitors and analyzes engineering spend across cloud AI/ML data platforms and SaaS identifying trends anomalies and optimization opportunities.

• Builds and maintains forecasts for engineering spend partnering with Finance and engineering leaders to understand drivers assumptions and risks.

• Partners with engineering product and TPMs to incorporate cost considerations into roadmaps architectural decisions and execution plans.

• Leads cost optimization initiatives such as rightsizing commitment strategies and workload efficiency improvements in collaboration with engineering owners.

• Creates and maintains dashboards and reporting that make spend understandable and actionable for both engineers and executives.

• Implements FinOps practices and processes including showback/chargeback models unit economics and cost ownership frameworks.

• Partners on tooling and automation working with data and engineering teams to improve cost visibility forecasting accuracy and operational efficiency.

• Drives alignment and behavior change helping teams balance cost performance reliability and velocity through data-driven decision making.

Requirements

• 610 years of relevant experience working at the intersection of engineering infrastructure data or finance in a cloud-native or SaaS environment.

• Proven experience partnering closely with engineering teams to influence decisions involving cloud infrastructure data platforms AI/ML workloads or SaaS spend.

• Experience managing AI and machine learning spend including tracking usage costs (e.g. compute model inference API consumption) forecasting budgets and identifying cost-optimization opportunities.

• Working understanding of modern cloud-native architectures including core components such as compute storage networking data pipelines and managed servicesenough to engage credibly with engineers on design tradeoffs and cost drivers.

• Strong foundation in cost analysis forecasting budgeting and variance management with the ability to translate data into clear actionable insights.

• Comfort working directly with data including writing SQL (or effectively using AI-assisted tools to do so) to explore datasets validate assumptions and answer ad hoc questions.

• Experience building clear high-quality dashboards and BI artifacts that are not only accurate but intuitive and delightful for engineers and leaders to use.

• Demonstrated success driving adoption and behavior changeembedding cost awareness into day-to-day engineering workflows not just producing reports.

• Experience owning and delivering cross-functional programs end-to-end often without direct authority or a dedicated team.

• Familiarity with FinOps principles and practices (e.g. shared ownership showback/chargeback unit economics optimization strategies).

• Strong communication skills with the ability to tailor complex technical and financial concepts for engineering finance and executive audiences.

Nice to Haves

• Hands-on familiarity with cloud cost management tools (e.g. AWS Cost Explorer GCP Billing Azure Cost Management CloudHealth Cloudability or similar).

• Experience working with or supporting data platforms and AI/ML workloads including understanding cost drivers for batch processing streaming storage and model training/inference.

• Exposure to showback/chargeback models cost allocation strategies or product-level unit economics.

• Experience improving data models or pipelines that support analytics reporting or financial attribution.

• Familiarity with BI tools such as Mode Tableau Looker or similarand a strong eye for dashboard usability and design.

• Background in a technical role (e.g. engineering TPM infra data or engineering operations) before moving into a more cross-functional or business-oriented position.

• Experience operating in a high-growth or rapidly scaling environment where cost structures and investment priorities are evolving quickly.

Our mission at Plaid is to unlock financial freedom for everyone. To support that mission we seek to build a diverse team of driven individuals who care deeply about making the financial ecosystem more equitable. We recognize that strong qualifications can come from both prior work experiences and lived experiences. We encourage you to apply to a role even if your experience doesnt fully match the job description. We are always looking for team members that will bring something unique to Plaid!

Plaid is proud to be an equal opportunity employer and values diversity at our company. We do not discriminate based on race color national origin ethnicity religion or religious belief sex (including pregnancy childbirth or related medical conditions) sexual orientation gender gender identity gender expression transgender status sexual stereotypes age military or veteran status disability or other applicable legally protected characteristics. We also consider qualified applicants with criminal histories consistent with applicable federal state and local laws. Plaid is committed to providing reasonable accommodations for candidates with disabilities in our recruiting process. If you need any assistance with your application or interviews due to a disability please let us know at

Please review our Candidate Privacy Notice here.

Additional compensation in the form(s) of equity and/or commission are dependent on the position offered. Plaid provides a comprehensive benefit plan including medical dental vision and 401(k). Pay is based on factors such as (but not limited to) scope and responsibilities of the position candidates work experience and skillset and location. Pay and benefits are subject to change at any time consistent with the terms of any applicable compensation or benefit plans.

Required Experience:

IC