Director, Fin Ops (Cloud Financial Management)

Location: Toronto, Ontario
Work Model: Hybrid — minimum three days onsite per week

Employment Type: Permanent, full-time

About the Role

The Director, Fin Ops will build, lead, and mature an enterprise Fin Ops program focused on sustainable cloud cost optimization while protecting reliability, security, and engineering productivity. This strategic and hands‑on role will own the Fin Ops strategy, operating model, governance framework, optimization pipeline, forecasting discipline, and savings targets across Azure and platform services.

The Director will partner with Engineering, Cloud Operations, Product, Finance, and senior leadership. Success requires executive‑level communication combined with hands‑on analysis, reporting, optimization tracking, governance, and the ability to establish strong cloud cost accountability across the organization.

Key Responsibilities

- Define and evolve the enterprise Fin Ops strategy, operating model, and governance framework.
- Build and manage a cloud cost optimization pipeline covering opportunity identification, impact analysis, prioritization, execution, savings verification, and regression prevention.
- Establish quarterly and annual savings targets covering hard savings, unit-cost improvements, and cost avoidance.
- Identify cloud cost drivers and convert findings into measurable optimization initiatives.
- Establish cost ownership and accountability across teams.
- Lead cloud budgeting, forecasting, variance analysis, and scenario planning.
- Develop showback/chargeback and cost‑allocation practices.
- Define and monitor unit economics, including cost per customer, transaction, environment, or deployment.
- Improve tagging standards, allocation accuracy, commitment planning, anomaly detection, and benefits tracking.
- Develop business cases and assess ROI and financial impact for optimization initiatives.
- Establish defensible baselines and methodologies for measuring realized savings.
- Partner with Engineering and Cloud Operations on architecture reviews, backlog prioritization, release planning, and operational decisions.
- Drive optimization across Azure compute and infrastructure, AKS/Kubernetes, rightsizing and scheduling, storage tiering, networking, Reserved Instances, Savings Plans, observability, and monitoring.
- Translate architecture and infrastructure decisions into financial impact and cost‑to‑serve implications.
- Establish cost‑efficiency policies and guardrails aligned with engineering delivery.
- Support Infrastructure as Code and Git Ops practices where appropriate.
- Implement and mature cost visibility, dashboards, reporting, alerts,



and automation using Azure‑native tooling and/or Fin Ops platforms.
- Develop anomaly detection, automated cleanup, cost monitoring, and optimization‑tracking processes.
- Establish cost‑observability practices across Azure Monitor, Log Analytics, and Application Insights.
- Improve the quality and availability of financial and operational cloud‑cost data.
- Lead the recurring Fin Ops governance cadence, including analysis, tracking, follow‑up, and optimization reviews.
- Produce executive reporting on cost drivers, risks, savings progress, forecasts, KPIs, and recommendations.
- Present recommendations and trade‑offs to senior leadership.
- Lead and mentor a small Fin Ops team or function, with scope to support future growth.
- Establish team goals, operating cadence, accountability, and continuous‑improvement practices.
- Develop training and enablement initiatives that improve Fin Ops awareness and cloud cost literacy across technical and product teams.
- Influence Engineering and Finance through governance, data, accountability, and collaboration rather than relying solely on direct authority.

Required Skills

- 10+ years of experience across cloud or platform technology, finance/FP&A;, technology operations, Fin Ops, or closely related disciplines.
- 3+ years of leadership experience at Director, Head, Lead, or comparable level.
- Experience building, leading, or materially contributing to Fin Ops or Cloud Financial Management programs.
- Demonstrated success delivering measurable cloud savings across multiple quarters and improving cost‑to‑serve.
- Strong experience with Azure cloud economics, cost drivers, and optimization.
- Technical understanding of Azure architecture, including compute, AKS/Kubernetes, storage, networking, and observability.
- Financial expertise in budgeting, forecasting, variance analysis, scenario planning, business cases, ROI, and savings measurement.
- Experience with cloud cost allocation, tagging, showback/chargeback, and/or unit‑cost models.
- Ability to translate technical decisions into financial impact and actionable business recommendations.
- Strong analytical skills, including the ability to identify true cost drivers and measure optimization outcomes.
- Ability to influence Engineering, Finance, Product,



and Cloud teams without relying solely on direct authority.
- Hands‑on capability in analysis, tracking, reporting, optimization follow‑up, and governance.
- Executive‑level written and verbal communication skills, including KPI reporting, recommendations, decision support, and senior stakeholder presentations.
- Ability to work effectively in an environment requiring structure, accountability, collaboration, and continuous improvement.

Preferred Skills

- Fin Ops Foundation Practitioner and/or Professional certification.
- Relevant Microsoft Azure certifications.
- Experience implementing showback/chargeback and unit‑cost models at scale.
- Experience in Infrastructure as Code and Git Ops environments, including Terraform and Argo CD.
- Experience integrating cloud cost controls and governance into engineering and delivery pipelines.

Cloud Platforms & Technologies

- Cloud Provider: Azure
- Containers & Kubernetes: AKS, Kubernetes
- Infrastructure as Code: Infrastructure as Code (IaC), Terraform
- Git Ops: Git Ops, Argo CD
- Monitoring & Observability: Azure Monitor, Log Analytics, Application Insights
- Fin Ops Tooling: Azure‑native tooling, Fin Ops platforms

Fin Ops Responsibilities

- Manage enterprise cloud cost optimization across Azure and platform services.
- Set and track savings targets, including hard savings, unit-cost improvements, and cost avoidance.
- Own budgeting, forecasting, variance analysis, scenario planning, and financial reporting.
- Develop cost allocation, tagging, showback/chargeback, and unit economics models.
- Manage commitment planning involving Reserved Instances and Savings Plans.
- Establish cost ownership, governance cadence, accountability, and cost‑efficiency guardrails.
- Improve cloud spend visibility through dashboards, alerts, anomaly detection, monitoring, and automation.
- Measure realized savings using credible baselines and documented methodologies.
- Track cost drivers, optimization opportunities, risks, KPIs, and benefits.
- Embed cost considerations into architecture, delivery, and operational decision‑making.
- Provide executive recommendations and financial trade‑off analysis.

Why You Might Be Interested

This role offers ownership of an enterprise Fin Ops program spanning strategy, governance, Azure optimization, financial planning, and executive reporting. It combines leadership responsibility with hands‑on analysis and execution. The position also provides the opportunity to build a growing Fin Ops function and influence cost‑aware decision‑making across Engineering, Finance, Product, and Cloud Operations.

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