## About the Role

The Lead Cloud Economics Specialist will own analytics, automation, and operating processes for cloud cost management, cost attribution, optimization tracking, strategic vendor economics, and support for product margin analysis.

This is a senior, hands-on finance business partnering role spanning Finance, Product & Engineering, IT, Procurement, Legal/Trust, and Data. The role turns complex usage and cost information into clear financial insights, scalable reporting, and executive-ready recommendations, while leading through ownership and influence rather than direct management.

The position exists to improve visibility into technology spend, strengthen forecasting and decision support, and help the business make better choices on cloud commitments, renewals, and optimization opportunities. It also supports planning and prioritization discussions without creating a separate product P&L ownership model.

## Key Responsibilities

– Build and maintain reporting across AWS, Azure, GCP, and related hosting environments.
– Improve attribution of cloud and infrastructure costs across services, teams, products, customers, projects, and cost centers.
– Use Python or equivalent scripting, SQL, APIs, BI tools, and workflow automation to reduce manual reporting.
– Build and maintain data pipelines that connect cloud billing, vendor usage, employee/project mapping, product usage, and financial data.
– Maintain an optimization pipeline covering opportunity size, owner, expected savings, realized savings, and implementation status.
– Support cloud commitment, reservation, savings plan, and renewal decisions using usage baselines, forecast scenarios, and risk analysis.
– Track strategic vendor spend and usage across major tools and platforms.
– Partner with Product & Engineering on cloud, infrastructure, software, and AI-related spend.
– Translate cost and usage trends into recommendations for budget owners, Finance, Procurement, and leadership.
– Support selected product, customer, or unit-cost analyses where data is available.
– Contribute to planning cycles, lightweight R&D investment analysis, and executive reporting.
– Produce recurring executive-ready materials covering savings, risks, forecasts, margin impact, open decisions, and recommended actions.

## Required Skills

– 6–10+ years of experience in Finance, Cloud Economics, FP&A, Strategic Finance, Business Operations, Engineering Operations, Data Analytics, or a related analytical field.
– Advanced spreadsheet modeling skills and experience working with large datasets.
– Hands-on experience with Python or an equivalent scripting language for analysis, automation, and reporting.
– Strong SQL skills.
– Experience with BI tools, APIs, cloud billing data, or recurring data pipelines.
– Experience analyzing SaaS, infrastructure, cloud, software, or usage-based cost models.
– Strong business judgment and the ability to translate technical usage data into financial insights.
– Excellent written communication skills and the ability to produce concise executive summaries.
– Proven ability to work cross-functionally with Engineering, Product, Finance, Procurement, IT, Legal, and Data stakeholders.
– Ability to work independently in ambiguous environments and create structure where mature processes do not yet exist.

## Preferred Skills

– Experience with cloud cost optimization, Cloud FinOps, SaaS infrastructure economics, technical vendor management, AI/LLM token economics, usage-based pricing, product margins, or software gross margin.
– Experience supporting Product & Engineering organizations.

## Cloud Platforms & Technologies

### Cloud Providers
– AWS
– Azure
– GCP

### Programming Languages
– Python
– SQL

### Data, Automation, and Analytics
– APIs
– BI tools
– Workflow automation
– Cloud billing data
– Employee/project mapping data
– Product usage data
– Financial data

### Vendor and Usage Platforms
– Datadog
– Cloudflare
– Databricks
– Cursor
– GitHub Copilot
– LiteLLM-related usage
– OpenAI-related usage

## FinOps Responsibilities

– Improve cloud cost visibility and cost attribution.
– Maintain recurring reporting for cloud and strategic technology spend.
– Track optimization opportunities, expected savings, realized savings, and implementation status.
– Support commitment, reservation, savings plan, and renewal decisions.
– Use usage baselines, forecast scenarios, and risk analysis to inform decisions.
– Track strategic vendor spend and usage across major platforms.
– Identify and investigate cost anomalies more quickly.
– Support budgeting, planning, prioritization, and margin discussions with Finance and business stakeholders.
– Provide executive visibility into spend, savings opportunities, risks, and business impact.

## Benefits

– Restricted Stock Units (RSUs) and merit-based refresh grants
– 24 weeks of fully paid parental leave for primary carers and 12 weeks for supporting carers, available from day one
– Unlimited PTO in applicable regions and generous PTO globally
– Flexible hybrid work model
– 70-20-10 learning framework, mentorship programs, and access to a dedicated learning platform
– Subsidized Wellhub memberships, mental health counseling, and Wellness Weeks
– Paid time off for annual Impact Days to support community and environmental causes
– Inclusion Think Tank and annual Inclusion Days

## Why You Might Be Interested

This is a high-visibility role with direct influence on technology spend accountability, savings realization, vendor decisions, and financial decision support for Product & Engineering. It combines hands-on analytics and automation with cross-functional partnering across Finance, Procurement, IT, Legal, and Data. The remit includes AWS, Azure, GCP, and major strategic software platforms, with room to define structure in an area where processes are still developing.