Strategic Finance Manager, R&D

BUILD A SAFER WORLD. TRM Labs provides AI-powered intelligence solutions that help public and private sector agencies investigate and disrupt crime. TRM's platforms enable investigators to trace illicit activity, build cases, and construct operating pictures of threat networks. Leading agencies and businesses worldwide rely on TRM to make the world safer and more secure. TRM’s Strategic Finance team partners with company leadership on how TRM invests in building its products, and this role is the dedicated finance partner for R&D — working directly with the CTO and engineering leaders. You will own the modeling of R&D spend — AI, cloud infrastructure, compute, and engineering headcount — and translate it into decisions that keep R&D scaling efficiently as the business grows. The impact you will have: - Own the annual operating plan and rolling forecast for R&D, partnering with engineering leaders on headcount, vendor, and infrastructure assumptions - Lead the monthly budget-vs-actuals process for R&D — analyze variances against plan, work with budget owners to explain drivers, and reflect them in the forecast - Own the cloud infrastructure and compute cost models, turning billing and usage data into variance readouts leadership can act on - Build scenario models to compare and cost out hiring plans and other resourcing decisions - Prepare monthly and quarterly reporting and ad hoc analyses that inform leadership decisions on resource allocation and prioritization What we’re looking for: - 5 to 8 years across investment banking, investing, consulting, or finance at a high-growth technology company, with a track record of owning monthly, quarterly, and annual planning and reporting cycles end-to-end with limited guidance - Hands-on fluency using AI tools in real finance work: you have used tools like Claude or ChatGPT to accelerate modeling and analysis, and can judge when to trust their output and when to override it - Expert-level Excel and Google Sheets modeling, plus experience building scalable, AI-assisted or agentic reporting engines - Experience supporting technical or product organizations (Engineering, Product, Data Science, or Infrastructure) is strongly preferred, including partnering with them to bring structure and AI-driven analysis to fast-growing cloud and compute costs About the Team: - Strategic Finance is a small, high-leverage team that works directly with senior leadership on forecasting, decision support, and company-wide strategy, led by operators from high-growth startups, private equity, and consulting - The team works across US time zones, with a high bar for execution and fast, direct feedback - You will partner cross-functionally with the CTO, engineering and infrastructure leaders, Recruiting, and Accounting, acting as the finance point of contact for everything R&D Team Operating Rhythms: - A weekly Strategic Finance standup sets priorities and unblocks work, with a separate weekly sync with the VP of Finance to align on the trajectory of the business - Monthly and quarterly close drives the calendar, culminating in a one-page Monthly Business Review that goes to leadership and feeds board materials - Day-to-day collaboration is async-first in Slack, with synchronous time reserved for planning, scenario reviews, and cross-functional decisions - Planning cadences (monthly reforecasts, quarterly reviews, annual planning) are run end-to-end by the owner, with status and decisions communicated in writing LIFE AT TRM We are building a safer world. That promise shows up in how we work every day. TRM moves quickly. We are a high velocity, high ownership team that expects clarity, follow-through, and impact. People who thrive here are energized by hard problems, experimentation, and continuous feedback. If something takes months elsewhere, it will ship here in days. Our work sits at the intersection of AI, national security, and fighting crime. The problems are co