The
Program Analyst provides program controls, financial analysis, schedule analysis, forecasting, and performance reporting for a high-visibility, complex ~$350M aviation program supporting the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).
Key Responsibilities
1. Program Financial Planning & Analysis
- Develop and maintain detailed program financial forecasts for revenue, cost, gross margin, cash flow, and expenditures.
- Analyze actual program performance against budget, baseline, forecast, and contractual objectives.
- Develop and maintain monthly ETC and EAC forecasts in coordination with the Program Manager and functional organizations.
- Perform cost, revenue, margin, and forecast variance analysis and identify significant trends or deviations.
- Identify potential cost overruns, margin erosion, funding concerns, and other emerging financial risks.
- Develop financial scenarios and impact assessments to support Program Manager decision-making.
- Support annual operating plan (AOP), budget, and long-range planning activities.
2. Cost & EAC Management
- Maintain detailed cost forecasts by workstream, CLIN, purchase order, subcontract, labor category, and major cost element.
- Reconcile actual costs, commitments, accruals, WIP, and forecasted expenditures.
- Monitor labor, material, supplier, production, equipment, travel, tariff, and other program costs.
- Analyze actual and projected expenditures against the approved program baseline.
- Identify cost trends and unfavorable variances before they materially affect program financial performance.
- Support development and tracking of financial recovery and corrective-action plans.
3. Schedule & Performance Analysis
- Support maintenance and analysis of the Integrated Master Schedule (IMS).
- Analyze critical path, schedule variance, milestone performance, dependencies, and forecast completion dates.
- Identify emerging schedule trends and potential impacts to contractual commitments.
- Integrate schedule and financial information to evaluate the cost, revenue, cash flow, and margin impact of schedule changes.
- Support schedule recovery planning and what-if analysis.
- Coordinate closely with the Project Coordinator to ensure execution status is accurately reflected in program schedules and forecasts.
4. Program Metrics & Executive Dashboards
- Develop and maintain integrated program dashboards and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).
- Provide objective reporting of:
- Revenue and revenue forecast
- Actual and forecast costs
- Gross margin
- ETC and EAC
- Cash flow
- Budget versus actual performance
- Schedule and milestone performance
- Risk and opportunity exposure
- Supplier performance
- Installation and deployment readiness
- Develop trend analyses that clearly identify changes in program performance over time.
- Ensure reported metrics are accurate, consistent, traceable, and supported by approved source data.
- Highlight exceptions and emerging issues requiring Program Manager or executive leadership attention.
5. Monthly Program Reviews & Financial Close
- Lead preparation of financial and analytical content for monthly program reviews.
- Reconcile program financial data with Finance prior to executive reporting.
- Support monthly financial close activities, including accruals, WIP, revenue recognition inputs, cost reconciliation, and forecast updates.
- Maintain historical program performance and forecast changes to provide month-over-month visibility.
- Develop concise executive-level analyses explaining significant cost, schedule, revenue, and margin variances.
- Support the Program Manager in preparation for executive and customer program reviews.
6. Risk & Opportunity Analysis
- Support maintenance of the program Risk and Opportunity Register.
- Quantify potential cost, schedule, revenue, and margin exposure associated with identified risks.
- Track mitigation actions and evaluate their effectiveness.
- Incorporate approved risks and opportunities into ETC/EAC and financial scenarios when appropriate.
- Perform sensitivity and what-if analyses to evaluate potential program outcomes.
7. Contract & Funding Analysis
- Monitor program funding, CLINs, contractual values, and financial performance against contractual requirements.
- Work with the Program Administrator and Contracts organization to ensure contract modifications, funding changes, and billing milestones are reflected in program forecasts.
- Analyze the financial impact of contract changes, customer requests, scope changes, and proposed modifications.
- Support change requests, proposals, and Rough Order of Magnitude (ROM) estimates through cost and schedule analysis.
- Support subcontract financial analysis and evaluation of supplier cost impacts.
8. Cross-Functional Program Controls
- Partner with Engineering, Manufacturing, Supply Chain, Quality, Field Services, Contracts, Finance, and other functions to obtain accurate program inputs.
- Establish recurring processes and data requirements for program forecasting and reporting.
- Challenge incomplete or inconsistent program data and drive resolution with functional owners.
- Ensure assumptions used in forecasts are documented, supportable, and aligned with current execution plans.
- Provide analytical support for program recovery plans, resource decisions, supplier issues, and other major program decisions.
Required Qualifications
- Bachelor's degree in finance, Accounting, Business Administration, Program Management, Engineering, or a related discipline.
- Minimum 5 -7 years of aerospace experience in program controls, financial analysis, program finance, project controls, or a related role supporting complex programs.
- Demonstrated experience developing and maintaining program budgets, forecasts, ETCs, and EACs.
- Experience performing cost, schedule, revenue, margin, and variance analysis.
- Strong understanding of program financial concepts including revenue, cost, gross margin, accruals, commitments, WIP, cash flow, and forecasting.
- Advanced proficiency with Microsoft Excel and financial/data analysis.
- Experience developing management dashboards, KPIs, and executive-level program reporting.
- Strong analytical skills with the ability to translate large amounts of financial and program data into actionable management information.
- Ability to work effectively across Finance, Engineering, Manufacturing, Supply Chain, Contracts, and Program Management organizations.
- Strong written and verbal communication skills with the ability to clearly communicate complex financial and program information.
Preferred Qualifications
- PMP, FP&A, EVM, or related professional certification
- Experience supporting large-scale FAA, aerospace, defense, aviation, or U.S. Government programs.
- Experience with programs valued at $100M+ or similarly complex multi-year programs.
- Knowledge of Federal Acquisition Regulations (FAR) and government contracting environments.
- Experience with Earned Value Management (EVM) or similar program performance management methodologies.
- Experience with Integrated Master Schedules and schedule analysis.
- Experience with ERP and program financial systems such as MS Business Central, SAP, Oracle, Costpoint.
- Experience with Power BI or other business intelligence and visualization tools.
