Financial Analyst, Datacenter

AFL•Duncan, SC

5d•Hybrid

About The Position

This role serves as a dedicated finance partner embedded with core business teams for assigned Hyperscale customers, focusing on customer-level P&L, financial forecasting, and cost analysis. The analyst will also be responsible for analyzing North America P&L cost lines, including SG&A, R&D, and manufacturing costs, and developing cost optimization recommendations. Additionally, the role involves supporting month-end close, annual operating plans, and quarterly reforecasts, as well as building financial models and reporting tools. The position requires strong analytical skills, the ability to work with large datasets, and collaboration with various internal teams.

Requirements

Bachelor's degree in Finance, Accounting, Economics, or Business.
3-5 years of progressive finance experience in FP&A, cost accounting, or operations/manufacturing finance.
Experience in a manufacturing environment with standard costing and variance analysis strongly preferred.
Hands-on experience with headcount planning, expense analysis, and budgeting.
Exposure to customer-facing or commercial finance, including pricing or customer profitability analysis.
Advanced Excel and financial modeling skills.
Strong understanding of standard costing, absorption, and manufacturing variances (material, labor, and overhead).
Proficiency with ERP systems and the ability to work with large, detailed data sets.
Exceptional attention to detail combined with the ability to see the bigger picture and connect cost drivers to P&L outcomes.
Ability to turn complex analysis into clear, actionable recommendations for both finance and non-finance audiences.
Curious, proactive, and comfortable getting into the details with the manufacturing floor, engineering, and account teams.
Builds strong relationships and influences without authority across commercial, operations, and accounting partners.
Manages multiple priorities and deadlines in a fast-paced, high-growth environment.

Nice To Haves

Professional qualification (CPA, CMA, CFA) or progress toward one valued.
MBA a plus but not required.
Power BI or similar BI tools strongly preferred.
Experience with IBP or S&OP processes highly desirable.

Responsibilities

Serve as the dedicated finance partner embedded with the core business teams for assigned Hyperscale customers, participating in account reviews and building full expertise on each customer relationship.
Build and maintain customer-level P&L views covering product-level revenue, standard cost, margin, and mix.
Analyze customer behavior, including ordering patterns, forecast accuracy, backlog conversion, and demand volatility, and translate those insights into the revenue and margin forecast.
Develop deep IBP expertise for assigned customers, reconciling unconstrained and constrained demand to the financial forecast and supplying customer-specific inputs to the Commercial Review Team.
Support pricing analysis for assigned customers, including price-volume-mix, contract pricing mechanics, raw material pass-throughs, and quote and deal profitability.
Provide customer-specific revenue and margin forecasts for the monthly forecast, quarterly reforecasts, and annual operating plan.
Own the detailed analysis of North America P&L cost lines, specifically SG&A, R&D, material variances, and processing costs, and become the go-to subject matter expert on what drives them.
Build and maintain the headcount plan and roster-level cost model, tracking actual versus plan for hires, attrition, open requisitions, and fully loaded cost per head.
Perform manufacturing labor efficiency analysis, including labor hours per unit, earned versus actual hours, overtime, and productivity trends, in partnership with Operations and Operations Finance.
Analyze material price, usage, and scrap variances and processing cost variances, identifying root causes with Operations, Supply Chain, and Products Accounting.
Review non-labor SG&A and R&D spend (outside services, travel, software, prototype and test materials, and similar) at the cost center and account level to identify savings opportunities.
Develop cost optimization recommendations with quantified financial impact, present them to finance and business leadership, and track the realization of savings over time.
Prepare monthly variance analysis of actuals versus forecast, budget, and prior year, with clear, concise commentary on cost and customer drivers.
Support North America P&L month-end close by reviewing cost center results, accruals, and reclasses, partnering closely with Products Accounting and Operations Finance.
Lead the build of expense, headcount, and cost inputs for the annual operating plan and quarterly reforecasts.
Maintain KPI dashboards and cost driver metrics that give early warning of spend, efficiency, and margin trends.
Build robust, scalable financial models and reporting tools in Excel and Power BI, automating recurring reports to free time for analysis.
Provide the analytical foundation behind the Data Center story, supporting the Finance Director and Finance Manager with ad hoc analysis, scenario models, and presentation-ready outputs.
Improve data quality, cost reporting structures, and process efficiency across ERP and business intelligence tools.
Document models, processes, and methodologies to ensure repeatability and knowledge transfer.