Sr. Director, FP&A , R&D

Company Description

LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional network, built to create economic opportunity for every member of the global workforce. Our products help people make powerful connections, discover exciting opportunities, build necessary skills, and gain valuable insights every day. We’re also committed to providing transformational opportunities for our own employees by investing in their growth. We aspire to create a culture that’s built on trust, care, inclusion, and fun – where everyone can succeed.

Join us to transform the way the world works.

Job Description

This role can be based in our San Francisco, CA office or Mountain View, CA office. At LinkedIn, we trust each other to do our best work where it works best for us and our teams. This role offers a hybrid work option, meaning you can both work from home and commute to a LinkedIn office, depending on what’s best for you and when it is important for your team to be together. 

Come talk with us about a role that sits at the heart of one of our most vital organizations! We’re looking for an FP&A Senior Director to partner with key leaders across R&D organizations. This role will lead the R&D Finance team and will drive the forecasting and annual planning process for LinkedIn’s Engineering and Product organizations. R&D Finance is a critical function for LinkedIn, supporting key leaders, organizations, and investment priorities for the company. In this capacity, you will be accountable for driving efficient and effective planning and forecasting processes and providing clear visibility into the R&D spend, investments, and ROI measures. The areas of focus will include supporting site-up initiatives (including forecasting for LinkedIn’s on-prem data centers and cloud spend), managing GenAI investments, working with horizontal and product engineering teams, as well as product management leaders, on R&D investments and key initiative ROI tracking. 

We are seeking out a Finance leader with strong communication skills and high capacity to build relationships with key stakeholders across R&D leadership teams and across finance. You will drive the development of forecasting and planning processes, including methods for strategic resource allocations and performance tracking of key investments across R&D. In addition, you will strive to continuously improve key financial processes, to increase efficiency of the work and produce high quality insights into business performance and expectations. You will thrive in leading through critical and complicated processes, bringing order and clarity of approach and communications to drive effective decision making. Your ability to fly at multiple altitudes will manifest in effectively advising the top R&D leaders in the company, to ensure that projections and models are accurate and appropriate for the ever-changing needs of the business. Your passion for individual and team development will enable you to successfully manage a high performing finance team. This role reports to LinkedIn’s VP of Central Finance. 

Responsibilities:  

• Partner closely with key R&D leaders across the company to represent FP&A 
• Provide a leadership voice and point of view to the R&D leadership teams  
• Drive the coordination of the various planning cycles (annual planning, quarterly forecasts and monthly outlooks) 
• Lead/support strategic R&D initiatives, providing both financial and business strategy perspectives and input 
• Oversee the completion of complex financial modeling development / improvement / maintenance 
• Manage the variance analysis of LinkedIn’s R&D capex, expenses and headcount, clearly explaining the business reasons for variances and adjusting the outlook models to reflect operational adjustments 
• Audit and review of financial models to ensure they are both accurate and updated to reflect latest assumptions and changing business needs 
• Drive the development and implementation of new processes to support the successful completion of timely and accurate forecasts, financial planning consolidations, and tracking of key investments and performance metrics 
• Analyze Budget/Forecast variances to Actual for review with R&D leadership teams 
• Ensure that various reporting systems and source data are accurate and reconciled 
• Set development goals, and effectively coach direct reports and other team members in their professional career growth

Qualifications

Basic Qualifications:  

• 10 years financial analysis, strategy or operations experience  
• Bachelor’s Degree in Finance or Accounting, or related discipline or equivalent work experience  
• Analytical background working directly in an FP&A, banking, consulting environment driving complex financial modeling 

Preferred Qualifications: 

• MBA is a plus 
• Advanced Excel modeling skills and competency in Word and PowerPoint 
• Strong systems skills with preference toward Hyperion (Essbase) and Oracle Financials 
• An understanding of accounting theory and practice (e.g. basic revenue recognition rules, company capitalization policies and proper expense timing) is preferred 
• Diligent, highly accurate with extreme attention to detail, and exceptional organizational skills 
• Leader with strong interpersonal skills, influence capability and social intelligence 
• Masterful written and verbal communication skills  
• Demonstration of critical thinking—ability to question the output of a financial model and consider options for improvement 
• Proactive, results oriented, with a can-do attitude and strict attention to detail in meeting critical deadlines 
• Direct experience working with both on-premise datacenter forecasting (capex and operating expense) as well as cloud hosting expenses would be an advantage 

Suggested Skills:

• Leadership 
• Cross-functional Collaboration
• Financial Planning & Analysis
• Communication 

LinkedIn is committed to fair and equitable compensation practices.    

The pay range for this role is $197,000 - $320,000. Actual compensation packages are based on several factors that are unique to each candidate, including but not limited to skill set, depth of experience, certifications, and specific work location. This may be different in other locations due to differences in the cost of labor.    

The total compensation package for this position may also include annual performance bonus, stock, benefits and/or other applicable incentive compensation plans. For more information, visit https://careers.linkedin.com/benefits. 

Additional Information

Equal Opportunity Statement

LinkedIn is committed to diversity in its workforce and is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. LinkedIn considers qualified applicants without regard to race, color, religion, creed, gender, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, marital status, pregnancy, sex, gender expression or identity, sexual orientation, citizenship, or any other legally protected class. LinkedIn is an Affirmative Action and Equal Opportunity Employer as described in our equal opportunity statement here: https://lnkd.in/equalemploymentopportunity2017. Please reference the following information for more information: https://legal.linkedin.com/content/dam/legal/LinkedIn_EEO_Statement_2020.pdf.  Please reference the following information for more information:  https://www.eeoc.gov/sites/default/files/migrated_files/employers/poster_screen_reader_optimized.pdf and https://www.dol.gov/ofccp/regs/compliance/posters/pdf/OFCCP_EEO_Supplement_Final_JRF_QA_508c.pdf for more information.

LinkedIn is committed to offering an inclusive and accessible experience for all job seekers, including individuals with disabilities. Our goal is to foster an inclusive and accessible workplace where everyone has the opportunity to be successful.

If you need a reasonable accommodation to search for a job opening, apply for a position, or participate in the interview process, connect with us at [email protected] and describe the specific accommodation requested for a disability-related limitation.

Reasonable accommodations are modifications or adjustments to the application or hiring process that would enable you to fully participate in that process. Examples of reasonable accommodations include but are not limited to:

• Documents in alternate formats or read aloud to you
• Having interviews in an accessible location
• Being accompanied by a service dog
• Having a sign language interpreter present for the interview

A request for an accommodation will be responded to within three business days. However, non-disability related requests, such as following up on an application, will not receive a response.

LinkedIn will not discharge or in any other manner discriminate against employees or applicants because they have inquired about, discussed, or disclosed their own pay or the pay of another employee or applicant. However, employees who have access to the compensation information of other employees or applicants as a part of their essential job functions cannot disclose the pay of other employees or applicants to individuals who do not otherwise have access to compensation information, unless the disclosure is (a) in response to a formal complaint or charge, (b) in furtherance of an investigation, proceeding, hearing, or action, including an investigation conducted by LinkedIn, or (c) consistent with LinkedIn's legal duty to furnish information.

San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance ​

Pursuant to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, LinkedIn will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records.

Pay Transparency Policy Statement ​

As a federal contractor, LinkedIn follows the Pay Transparency and non-discrimination provisions described at this link: https://lnkd.in/paytransparency.

Global Data Privacy Notice for Job Candidates ​

Please follow this link to access the document that provides transparency around the way in which LinkedIn handles personal data of employees and job applicants: https://legal.linkedin.com/candidate-portal.