FinOps / Cloud Cost Management Leader

Cerence

About The Position

A Moving Experience. Key Responsibilities Intake Governance All public cloud spend require FinOps approval, starting with established/approved budgets and requiring in-band spend provenance and out-of-band spend approvals. Ensure meticulous documentation of every budget change transaction. Ensure 100% compliance for every public cloud spend line item. Collaborate with budget owners in Engineering, R&D, PS, IT and Finance to allocate special funding requests. Bottom-up Fiscal Year Budget Maintain and update reference data for fiscal year budget planning. Summarize and communicate budget plans to business stakeholders. Facilitate quarterly budget cycles and incremental spend approval with owners. Spend Performance Lead review meetings to monitor cloud spend and add anomaly detection to the mix. Manage purchase orders (POs) for cloud resources. Oversee spend reporting and provide feedback to budget owners. Track changes to spend and ensure alignment with financial targets. Democratize spend performance in a way that aligns with stake holders from C-suite to engineers that implement changes that impact public cloud spend. Cost Avoidance Approve and manage reserved instance purchases to optimize cloud costs. Communicate planned changes that may impact cash flow or spend performance. Monitor reserved instance utilization and drive realization of savings goals (ESR). Visualize coverage by SKU and support automation of cost calculations. Report on cost avoidance achievements and how those relate back to spend performance. Executive Presence Demonstrate strong executive presence Ability to communicate effectively with senior leadership, influence decision-making, and represent the FinOps function confidently across various business units Showcases poise, credibility, and the capacity to inspire trust while driving strategic initiatives in a fast-evolving technology landscape Business Unit Cost Democratize business unit cost at multiple layers of granularity as well as negotiate allocation strategies for common/shared costs so the business feels they are fair strategies. Facilitate pricing and modeling for new and existing products/features. Provide insights on true resource impact and technical changes affecting costs. Estimation & Investigations Support product, sales, and engineering teams with estimation tasks for new services or features. Assist with investigations into cost anomalies and resource usage. At Cerence AI, we help the world's leading automotive and technology brands leverage AI to create safer, more productive and more joy-filled brand and user experiences. We're looking for motivated, collaborative individuals who come alive with big challenges and are excited about AI's potential to shape the future of how people experience the world.

Requirements

Must be FinOps.org certified
5yrs experience in cloud financial operations (FinOps), budgeting, and cost management.
Strong analytical and reporting skills.
Ability to collaborate across technical and business teams.
Familiarity with cloud platforms (Azure, AWS, GCP) and cost optimization strategies.
Excellent communication and organizational skills.
Experience with reporting platforms as well as backend data acquisition via API and data search/storage strategies (SQL, Prometheus, Parquet Files, Databricks, etc)
Following workplace security protocols and training programs to familiarize with the ways to maintain a safe workplace.
Following security procedures to report any suspicious activity.
Having respect for corporate security procedures to allow those procedures to be effective.
Adhering to company's compliance and regulations.
Encouraging to follow a zero tolerance for workplace violence.
Basic knowledge of information security and data privacy requirements (e.g., how to protect data & how to be handling this data).
Demonstrative knowledge of information security through internal training programs.

Nice To Haves

Ideal candidate has established their own practice.
Experience either evaluating or operating off-the-shelf FinOps tools such as CloudHealth, Cloudability, KubeCost, etc…
Experience in K8s cost allocation strategies

Responsibilities

Intake Governance All public cloud spend require FinOps approval, starting with established/approved budgets and requiring in-band spend provenance and out-of-band spend approvals.
Ensure meticulous documentation of every budget change transaction.
Ensure 100% compliance for every public cloud spend line item.
Collaborate with budget owners in Engineering, R&D, PS, IT and Finance to allocate special funding requests.
Maintain and update reference data for fiscal year budget planning.
Summarize and communicate budget plans to business stakeholders.
Facilitate quarterly budget cycles and incremental spend approval with owners.
Lead review meetings to monitor cloud spend and add anomaly detection to the mix.
Manage purchase orders (POs) for cloud resources.
Oversee spend reporting and provide feedback to budget owners.
Track changes to spend and ensure alignment with financial targets.
Democratize spend performance in a way that aligns with stake holders from C-suite to engineers that implement changes that impact public cloud spend.
Approve and manage reserved instance purchases to optimize cloud costs.
Communicate planned changes that may impact cash flow or spend performance.
Monitor reserved instance utilization and drive realization of savings goals (ESR).
Visualize coverage by SKU and support automation of cost calculations.
Report on cost avoidance achievements and how those relate back to spend performance.
Demonstrate strong executive presence Ability to communicate effectively with senior leadership, influence decision-making, and represent the FinOps function confidently across various business units Showcases poise, credibility, and the capacity to inspire trust while driving strategic initiatives in a fast-evolving technology landscape
Democratize business unit cost at multiple layers of granularity as well as negotiate allocation strategies for common/shared costs so the business feels they are fair strategies.
Facilitate pricing and modeling for new and existing products/features.
Provide insights on true resource impact and technical changes affecting costs.
Support product, sales, and engineering teams with estimation tasks for new services or features.
Assist with investigations into cost anomalies and resource usage.