AI FinOps Governance Lead

About UKG

At UKG, the work you do matters. The code you ship, the decisions you make, and the care you show a customer all add up to real impact. Today, tens of millions of workers start and end their days with our workforce operating platform helping people get paid, grow in their careers, and shape the future of their industries.

About UKG

At UKG, the work you do matters. The code you ship, the decisions you make, and the care you show a customer all add up to real impact. Today, tens of millions of workers start and end their days with our workforce operating platform helping people get paid, grow in their careers, and shape the future of their industries.

We never stop learning. We never stop challenging the norm. We push for better, and we celebrate the wins along the way. Here, you ll get flexibility that s real, benefits you can count on, and a team that succeeds together. Because at UKG, your work matters and so do you.

About

The Role

As a Staff AI Fin Ops Governance Lead, you will lead financial governance for UKG s AI platforms and services, driving accountability, transparency, and optimization across our AI investments. This role combines expertise in cloud financial management, AI infrastructure economics, and cross-functional program leadership to ensure AI innovation is delivered efficiently and sustainably.

You will partner closely with Engineering, Product, Finance, Procurement, and Cloud Operations to establish governance, optimize AI spend, and provide executive visibility into the financial performance of UKG s AI portfolio. This role requires someone who understands both cloud economics and the emerging cost drivers of Generative AI, including LLMs, inference services, vector databases, GPUs, and AI agent workloads.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead AI Fin Ops governance across UKG AI initiatives, establishing operating rhythms, accountability, and financial transparency.
• Define AI cost KPIs, operational metrics, and executive dashboards that measure efficiency, utilization, and business value.
• Develop forecasting models and long-range financial plans for AI infrastructure and GenAI services.
• Present AI cost trends, optimization progress, forecasts, and investment recommendations to senior leadership.

• Monitor AI usage and spend across cloud providers and AI platforms, identifying anomalies, inefficiencies, and optimization opportunities.
• Drive measurable cost optimization initiatives across model selection, inference patterns, caching strategies, prompt optimization, and infrastructure utilization.
• Evaluate tradeoffs between reserved capacity, committed use discounts, pay-as-you-go pricing, and emerging AI consumption models.
• Partner with Engineering to optimize token consumption, GPU utilization, model routing, and workload placement.

• Establish AI spend guardrails including budgets, alerts, quotas, and financial governance policies.
• Partner with Cloud Operations, Procurement, and Finance to manage cloud commitments, AI provider agreements, and consumption forecasting.
• Ensure accurate cost allocation, tagging, chargeback/showback, and unit economics across AI services.
• Design governance processes that proactively prevent cost overruns and improve financial accountability.

• Collaborate with engineering teams to incorporate Fin Ops principles into AI architecture and platform design.
• Influence technical decisions by providing cost transparency and recommendations throughout the software development lifecycle.
• Support engineering teams with dashboards, training, financial insights, and optimization guidance.
• Develop cost-to-serve models and AI unit economics that inform product strategy and investment decisions.

• Build executive dashboards and reporting that translate complex cloud and AI consumption data into actionable business insights.
• Analyze cloud billing, AI usage, and infrastructure metrics using SQL, Python, BI platforms, and cloud-native reporting tools.
• Identify trends, forecast future consumption, and quantify the financial impact of optimization initiatives.