Director of Finance

About the role

CSuite Financial Partners has been retained by our client, a San Mateo, CA based $1.8B funded robotic intelligence engineering company, to place their first true finance leader in the role of Director of Finance.

Key Responsibilities

• Building the company's financial operating model from zero — budgets, cost centers, projections, burn/runway analysis, and long-range forecasts
• Serving as the "adult in the room" for finance — ensuring bills are paid on time, numbers are accurate, and spend is thoughtful
• Partnering directly with founders to educate, advise, and drive strategic financial decisions for a capital-intensive business managing billions in funding
• Assessing current finance/accounting talent and determining the size and shape of the finance team going forward
• Owning board reporting, investor materials, and fundraising support for a high-profile Series C company

Key Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in finance, accounting, or economics; MBA or CPA nice to have
• 10-15+ years of experience in strategic finance, FP&A, or corporate finance with meaningful startup operating experience
• Has been a first finance hire or built/scaled a finance function at a high-growth, venture-backed company (Series B-D stage)
• Experience in capital-intensive or AI/tech businesses — ideally from recognizable logos (e.g., Anthropic, OpenAI, Grok/NVIDIA, 11 Labs, or similar hyperscaler/frontier AI companies)
• Confident, unflappable communicator who can go toe-to-toe with founders, push back with conviction, and educate non-finance leaders
• Comfortable managing billions in capital and making strategic investment decisions at scale
• Builds complex financial models from scratch (burn, runway, scenario planning, headcount, budgets)
• Ideally based in the Bay Area; able to work on-site 5 days/wk in San Mateo
• Comfortable coming into an IC role for the first 6-12 months before they start building out their team

Compensation Offered

• Competitive base salary: $250k-350k/yr depending on experience
• Competitive equity
• Relocation support, if needed
• Comprehensive benefits: medical, dental, vision