Controller

Mile Two, LLC•Dayton, OH

19h

About The Position

The Controller is a pivotal leadership role reporting directly to the CFO, owning our accounting ecosystem and guiding a dedicated team consisting of a Senior Accountant and Program Controller. You will partner with Director-level leaders across every department, not just Finance, and have a real understanding of what's happening across the organization. You need to be an excellent communicator, comfortable explaining financial and compliance topics clearly to a wide audience. Success here requires true operational ownership, high craftsmanship, and proactive leadership. We expect our Controller to maintain rigorous line-by-line scrutiny over our GL, cash forecasting, and balance sheet reconciliations by catching discrepancies, verifying transactions, and preventing errors before they reach executive review. You need to be genuinely tech-savvy, understanding how our processes and systems fit together, and ready to help the team embrace automation and AI in ways that actually make us better, not adopt it just because it's trendy.

Requirements

Active CPA license.
Bachelor's degree in Business, Accounting, or Finance.
7+ years of progressive accounting experience, including at least 4 years in a GovCon environment.
2+ years of experience specifically with CPFF (Cost-Plus Fixed-Fee) contracts.
Deep working knowledge of FAR, DFARS, GAAP, and Cost Accounting Standards (CAS), including staying current with regulatory changes.
Proven experience navigating a DCAA audits as the responsible party.
Deep, hands-on Unanet expertise, including configuration and administration, not just report-level use; comfortable serving as the go-to resource for other staff.
Strong understanding of how finance systems and processes interconnect, with the judgment to think through how a change might affect other people or teams before making it.
Excellent verbal and written communicator, comfortable translating financial and compliance topics for audiences ranging from the accounting team to the whole company.
Self-motivated leader who takes full ownership of the team and empowers them to do their best work.
Advanced Excel skills, including data extraction, transformation, and financial modeling.
Experience leading process improvement initiatives within a finance function.
Experience coordinating annual tax return preparation with an outside CPA firm, including familiarity with R&D tax credit calculations.
Experience overseeing a 401(k) plan audit and an annual financial statement compilation or audit.
Demonstrated ability to partner effectively with leaders outside of finance, and genuine interest in understanding the business beyond the numbers.
Strong problem-solving, analytical, and decision-making skills, particularly in producing financial commentary that holds up to scrutiny.
Strong work ethic, high attention to detail, and uncompromising integrity.
Genuine enjoyment of teaching and mentoring others, especially less experienced teammates.

Nice To Haves

Experience leading a finance team through a transition, turnaround, or systems change.
Experience training or mentoring non-finance staff on compliance requirements.
Genuine comfort evaluating and implementing new technology or automation, grounded in real technical understanding rather than trend-chasing.
Hands-on experience with AI tools or workflow automation in a finance context.
Experience integrating Unanet data with third-party analytics or or automation platforms.

Responsibilities

Own the monthly close process, delivering accurate and compliant financial statements within a 5-business-day close.
Own the annual close and the integrity of our financial statements.
Review and approve all A/P payments, payroll runs, outgoing cash transactions, GL entries, and monthly balance sheet reconciliations, serving as the check and balance for the accounting team.
Own the accuracy of our short-term cash forecast, ensuring cash-impacting activities across departments are captured.
Analyze financial data to identify trends and produce reporting commentary that is accurate, relevant, and genuinely useful to leadership decision-making, not just a recap of the numbers.
Ensure best practices in project/program setup and control with the Program Controller, including revenue recognition and billing. Stay close enough to our contracts to know their status and how they affect the numbers.
Keep our accounting practices fully compliant with FAR, DFARS, Cost Accounting Standards (CAS), and GAAP as those standards and our business evolve.
Oversee and facilitate completion of incurred cost submissions (ICS) prepared by the team.
Serve as the primary point of contact for our annual financial statement compilation/audit, 401(k) plan audit, DCAA audits, and workers' compensation and sales/use tax audits, overseeing the process and ensuring the team's work (primarily handled by the Senior Accountant) is accurate, complete, and appropriately scoped.
Establish and enforce internal controls that safeguard company assets and protect the integrity of our financial records.
Lead coordination of annual tax return preparation with our outside CPA firm, including familiarity with R&D tax credit calculations.
Serve as the internal Unanet expert, including configuring reports, workflows, and system settings, not just running what's already built.
Identify and lead process improvements across the finance function.
Evaluate and adopt new tools or automation where they demonstrably improve accuracy or speed, grounded in a genuine understanding of how our systems work.
Lead the team's responsible adoption of AI, helping them learn to use it well rather than defaulting to 'AI-driven' for everything.
Partner with Director-level leaders across every department (not just Finance), staying genuinely informed about what's happening across the organization rather than only in the books.
Lead, develop, and grow a Senior Accountant and Program Controller.
Run the weekly Finance meeting and actively connect the team's work to company priorities.
Share expertise and help less experienced teammates improve. Explain compliance requirements to non-finance stakeholders in a way that builds trust.