Finance Manager, R&D

Role

We are seeking a highly analytical and execution-oriented Finance Manager, R&D to join Function Health's Finance team and serve as a dedicated finance partner to our R&D organization. This role will sit at the intersection of Finance, technology, and R&D, partnering closely with technical and operational leaders to translate rapidly evolving business needs into accurate forecasts, financial models, budgets, and actionable financial insights.

This is not a traditional Strategic Finance role. While strong financial modeling and analytical skills are essential, this position is highly operational and execution-focused. You will be responsible for getting into the details, understanding the financial drivers behind complex technical initiatives, building the models and processes needed to support them, and ensuring Finance can accurately forecast a fast-moving and evolving area of the business.

This is an individual contributor role for someone who enjoys building, executing, and improving how Finance operates. You are comfortable working through high volumes of information, creating structure where little exists, leveraging AI to work more effectively, and partnering closely with stakeholders to keep the business moving.

The ideal candidate is deeply curious, highly organized, and comfortable operating at speed and with ambiguity. You can engage credibly with technical stakeholders, ask the right questions to uncover financial requirements, and translate inputs such as AI/API usage, infrastructure, vendors, headcount, lab operations, and other R&D investments into clear financial models and forecasts.

Key Responsibilities:

• R&D Finance Business Partnership: Partner closely with technical department leads across R&D and related teams to support budgeting, forecasting, financial planning, and performance reporting. Develop a deep understanding of their priorities, operations, and key financial drivers.
• Forecasting & Budgeting: Own detailed forecasts and budgets for the R&D organization, and translating evolving business needs.
• Performance Reporting & Insights: Partner directly with stakeholders to understand changes in the business and continuously improve forecast accuracy.
• Financial Modeling: Build and maintain detailed financial models that translate complex operational and technical inputs into clear financial outputs. Create new models and frameworks as Function introduces new products, technologies, vendors, and R&D initiatives.
• Headcount Planning: Collaborate closely with the People team and R&D leadership to manage hiring plans, model headcount investments, and track hiring and personnel spend against budget and forecast.
• Executive & Leadership Reporting: Prepare and deliver financial reporting for executive leadership and support financial analyses and materials for Board and investor presentations.
• Operational Finance & Variance Management: Maintain close visibility into actual performance versus forecast, investigate variances, update assumptions, and ensure financial plans accurately reflect what is happening across the organization.
• Process Building & Improvement: Identify and implement improvements across budgeting, forecasting, planning, and reporting workflows. Build scalable processes in areas where financial infrastructure is still developing and create structure within a fast-moving, ambiguous environment.
• Planning Systems & Tools: Support the rollout, implementation, and ongoing optimization of budgeting and planning systems to improve financial operations, forecast accuracy, reporting efficiency, and scalability.
• Cross-Functional Execution: Partner across Finance, Accounting, People, R&D, Product, Medical Intelligence Lab, and other teams to ensure financial information and business inputs flow accurately and efficiently across the organization.
• AI-Forward Finance: Leverage AI and modern tools to increase the speed, accuracy, and scalability of financial modeling, forecasting, reporting, and operational workflows.

Qualifications / Skills:

• 6+ years of experience in FP&A, Financial Operations, Business Finance, or a related finance role, ideally within a startup or high-growth technology environment.
• Technical or R&D Business Partnership: Experience partnering with technical or operational teams such as R&D, Engineering, Product, Data, AI/ML, or other technology-focused organizations, with the ability to understand their priorities and translate them into financial requirements.
• Financial Modeling: Strong financial modeling and analytical skills, with advanced proficiency in Excel/Google Sheets and demonstrated experience building models from the ground up.
• Forecasting & Budgeting: Experience owning detailed budgets and forecasts, analyzing actuals against plan, investigating variances, and maintaining forecast accuracy in a rapidly changing environment.
• Operational Orientation: Highly execution-oriented and comfortable working through volume and detail. Able to move quickly, manage competing priorities, and create structure in ambiguous or evolving environments.
• Cross-Functional Partnership: Demonstrated ability to support and influence cross-functional teams through data-driven insights, while building strong, collaborative relationships with both Finance and non-Finance stakeholders.
• Technical & Business Curiosity: Naturally curious and comfortable asking the right questions to understand unfamiliar technical concepts, operational drivers, and cost structures and translate them into financial models and forecasts.
• AI Fluency: Demonstrated experience applying AI to improve finance processes, automate workflows, increase efficiency, and generate actionable financial insights.
• Builder Mentality: Experience creating or significantly improving financial models, processes, reporting, systems, or operating workflows rather than solely maintaining established processes.
• Communication & Detail Orientation: Clear and effective communicator with strong attention to detail and the ability to translate complex financial information for a variety of stakeholders.

Nice-to-Have Skills and Experiences:

• Pigment: Hands-on experience using Pigment for budgeting, forecasting, and reporting; implementation or optimization experience is especially valuable.
• Healthtech / Diagnostics: Experience within consumer health, diagnostics, digital health, laboratory, or healthcare technology environments.
• FP&A Systems Implementation: Experience implementing or improving modern planning tools such as Pigment, Anaplan, Adaptive Planning, or similar platforms.
• 01 Finance Building: Experience creating new financial models, forecasting processes, reporting structures, or operating workflows from scratch in a rapidly scaling organization.

To be a strong fit, you embody our Core Values

• Ruthless Prioritization:
  • We don't let perfect get in the way of progress.
  • We move quickly to drive value, not perfection.
  • We prioritize what drives impact.
  • We never compromise on standards of excellence.
• Member-First, Always:
  • We design and deliver like we're caring for someone we love.
  • We create clear, actionable, human experiences.
  • We prioritize responsiveness, peace of mind, and outcomes.
  • We empower members with truth, clarity, and care.
• One Team, Moving Fast:
  • We are aligned in purpose, prioritization, and speed.
  • We gather diverse perspectives to make informed decisions.
  • We clear paths for each other and move fast together.
  • We communicate clearly and respectfully, rallying around shared goals.
• Radical Ownership, Relentless Execution:
  • We don't just ship - we own outcomes and drive results.
  • We act with urgency and precision.
  • We anticipate, initiate, and follow through.
  • We meet challenges with grit and pragmatism.
  • We embrace new tech to deliver better outcomes.
• Mission Over Ego:
  • We are ruthlessly aligned to our mission - and leave ego at the door.
  • We disagree and commit.
  • We don't tolerate politics or withholding information.
  • We operate with honesty, transparency, and respect.
• Sustained Integrity in Every Detail:
  • We earn trust by obsessing over accuracy, quality, and clarity in everything we do.
  • We prioritize clinical precision - data must be right.
  • We sweat the details because outcomes depend on them.

Why You'll Love Working With Us

We value our team at Function and offer a competitive salary and benefits package, flexible working hours, and a dynamic work environment where creativity and innovation are encouraged. If you are a highly motivated and experienced individual who is passionate about using technology to improve people's lives, we would love to hear from you.