Director of Product & Engineering Finance

Aurora Innovation Aurora Innovation · Robotics · Mountain View, CA · Finance

This role is for a Director of Product & Engineering Finance at Aurora Innovation, a self-driving technology company. The position focuses on financial planning, budgeting, forecasting, and business analytics for software, hardware, supply chain, and manufacturing functions. The ideal candidate will partner with senior leadership, drive strategic initiatives, develop financial models, and optimize capital deployment. While the company works with AI and physical AI, this role is primarily a finance function, with a requirement to drive adoption of AI to enhance FP&A workstreams.

What you'd actually do

  1. Lead the team responsible for budgeting, forecasting, business planning, management reporting, and business analytics for the Software, Hardware, Supply Chain, and Manufacturing functions
  2. Quickly become a trusted Finance Business Partner to senior leadership teams for each of these departments, helping to enhance financial discipline and accountability
  3. Expertly manage complex financial data sets demonstrating strong executive presence, strategic thinking, and the ability to influence leadership decision making
  4. Partner with peers to design and drive strategic initiatives, such as multi-year autonomy hardware development and vehicle manufacturing operations, by working cross-functionally with stakeholders, providing rigorous analysis, and sound financial recommendations
  5. Work closely with functional and people business partners to develop proactive workforce planning and resource allocation strategies

Skills

Required

  • 15+ years of progressive work experience currently serving as the finance lead for a large, complex hardware or technology business with multi-year capital commitments
  • Significant experience in deep tech, physical AI, manufacturing, hardware, automotive, aerospace, heavy industrial or other similar industries
  • Deep understanding of Hardware and Software development cycles, including experience supporting engineering in the transition from R&D to commercial scale
  • Track record of building world-class finance teams and driving business and financial outcomes, as measured on margin improvement, working capital efficiency, forecast accuracy, and execution of cost-reduction initiatives
  • Experience driving adoption of AI to enhance FP&A workstreams; understanding of the rapidly evolving landscape of tools and a passion for proactively incorporating AI to increase the pace and quality of execution
  • Strong written and verbal communication skills and proven ability to effectively communicate complex concepts to an executive audience in a succinct, clear manner
  • Degree in Finance or related quantitative field such as Business, Economics, Math, or Statistics. Engineering degrees also considered
  • Familiar with advanced Financial tools and systems (e.g. Pigment, NetSuite, Coupa, Plex, Oracle, SAP)

Nice to have

  • CPA (or international equivalent), CFA, or MBA preferred
  • Expert-level GSuite skills, particularly Google Sheets, Google Docs and Google Slides
  • Pigment, Netsuite and/or Coupa experience is a plus

What the JD emphasized

  • Experience driving adoption of AI to enhance FP&A workstreams
  • deep tech, physical AI, manufacturing, hardware, automotive, aerospace, heavy industrial or other similar industries
  • Track record of building world-class finance teams and driving business and financial outcomes, as measured on margin improvement, working capital efficiency, forecast accuracy, and execution of cost-reduction initiatives
  • improve the engineering teams’ ability to forecast capital requirements across multiple generations of product, identifying risk & opportunities to achieving targets