Senior Financial Analyst - R&D

As a Senior Financial Analyst at Ridgeline, you’ll serve as the trusted finance business partner for our R&D organization, supporting Product, Engineering, Design, Security, and other technology teams. You’ll help guide strategic investment decisions by connecting product priorities, workforce planning, cloud infrastructure, vendor spend, and technology investments to Ridgeline’s financial goals. You’ll leverage cutting‑edge technologies and approved AI‑enabled tools to improve forecasting, automate analysis, surface actionable insights, and scale repeatable financial processes while maintaining the highest standards of confidentiality, accuracy, and financial stewardship.

At Ridgeline, how we work matters as much as what we build. Ridgeliners act like owners, choose growth over comfort, and communicate with transparency. We assume positive intent, bias toward action, and bring solutions—not just problems. We celebrate wins, learn from setbacks, and thrive in a resilient, collaborative, high‑performing culture.

You must be work authorized in the United States without the need for employer sponsorship.

This is a hybrid in‑office position that requires a minimum of 3 days per week onsite in either our San Ramon, CA or Reno, NV office.

• Partner with Product, Engineering, Design, Security, and technology leaders to provide financial guidance that informs roadmap and resource allocation decisions
• Lead R&D budgeting, forecasting, annual planning, and long‑range planning across headcount, contractors, cloud infrastructure, software, AI, and vendor investments
• Build and maintain financial models that translate product roadmaps, hiring plans, technology architecture, and vendor commitments into clear financial outcomes
• Evaluate strategic tradeoffs across hiring, cloud consumption, vendors, and build‑versus‑buy decisions while identifying financial risks and opportunities
• Develop executive‑ready dashboards and reporting that improve visibility into R&D spend, workforce trends, forecast accuracy, cloud costs, and operational performance
• Prepare business cases and scenario analyses that support new products, platform investments, and strategic technology initiatives
• Partner with Engineering and Infrastructure teams to improve cloud cost allocation, tagging, unit economics, forecasting, and Fin Ops best practices
• Identify cloud optimization opportunities including reservations, savings plans, vendor commitments, architecture improvements, and usage efficiencies while balancing cost, performance, security, and reliability
• Own monthly close activities including variance analysis, accrual support, reforecasting, executive communications, and budget‑to‑actual reporting
• Collaborate with Accounting to support purchase commitments, vendor management, accruals, prepaids, and internal‑use software capitalization
• Maintain reliable workforce and operating expense forecasts by reconciling planning, ERP, HRIS, procurement, and project data
• Improve financial processes through automation, AI‑assisted workflows, stronger controls, enhanced documentation, and scalable reporting capabilities
• Foster a collaborative environment by communicating financial insights clearly, encouraging informed decision‑making, and continuously improving how R&D investments are measured

• Bachelor’s degree in Finance, Accounting, Economics, Business, or a related quantitative field, or equivalent practical experience
• 5‑7 years of progressive experience in FP&A, corporate finance, accounting, strategic finance, or a related analytical role
• Experience supporting Product, Engineering, R&D, or technology organizations within a SaaS, cloud, or high‑growth software company preferred
• Strong financial modeling, forecasting, budgeting, and business partnership skills
• Working knowledge of Fin Ops principles, cloud cost management, allocation methodologies, usage‑based forecasting, and cloud unit economics
• Experience with planning, ERP, HRIS, procurement, BI, cloud billing, and AI‑enabled analytics platforms such as Adaptive Planning, Workday, Net Suite, Coupa, AWS Cost Explorer, Looker, Tableau, or similar systems
• Familiarity with…