Lead, TPL –Cost & Governance

About the role

Lead the development of bottom-up cost calculations across vehicle main system teams (MSTs) and departments, ensuring a robust and transparent financial baseline for R&D programs.

Assess and validate the plausibility of budget requests, ensuring alignment between detailed bottom-up inputs and overall program targets.

Consolidate and communicate approved budgets across MSTs and departments, ensuring clarity of ownership and alignment with program objectives.

Drive cost forecasting activities and track actual spend against approved budgets, ensuring continuous visibility into financial performance.

Perform ongoing budget risk assessments, identifying deviations, trends, and potential overruns based on actuals and forecasts.

Establish and enforce financial governance and accountability, holding MST and functional leaders (including VP-level stakeholders) accountable for budget adherence and financial commitments.

Support resource allocation decisions aligned with project scope, priorities, and timing, ensuring optimal utilization of financial and human resources.

Monitor and track progress against Top Goals and KPIs, ensuring alignment between financial performance and overall program success metrics.

Identify cost-driven risks and trade-offs, supporting data-driven decision-making across engineering, product, and business teams.

Drive cross-functional alignment on financial assumptions, priorities, and recovery actions where budget gaps or risks arise.

Support the preparation of financial reporting, dashboards, and leadership materials for governance forums and executive reviews.

Act as a central coordination point for cost and governance topics, ensuring consistency between planning, execution, and reporting.

Responsibilities

• Lead program execution, issue resolution, and cross-functional alignment across the entire vehicle program, ensuring delivery of complex vehicle systems in line with Scout’s product, timing, quality, and cost targets.
• Operate at a vehicle and system integration level, acting as a central driver of transparency, accountability, and structured decision-making across R&D and cross-functional teams.
• Lead the development of bottom-up cost calculations across vehicle main system teams (MSTs) and departments, ensuring a robust and transparent financial baseline for R&D programs.
• Assess and validate the plausibility of budget requests, ensuring alignment between detailed bottom-up inputs and overall program targets.
• Consolidate and communicate approved budgets across MSTs and departments, ensuring clarity of ownership and alignment with program objectives.
• Drive cost forecasting activities and track actual spend against approved budgets, ensuring continuous visibility into financial performance.
• Perform ongoing budget risk assessments, identifying deviations, trends, and potential overruns based on actuals and forecasts.
• Establish and enforce financial governance and accountability, holding MST and functional leaders (including VP-level stakeholders) accountable for budget adherence and financial commitments.
• Support resource allocation decisions aligned with project scope, priorities, and timing, ensuring optimal utilization of financial and human resources.
• Monitor and track progress against Top Goals and KPIs, ensuring alignment between financial performance and overall program success metrics.
• Identify cost-driven risks and trade-offs, supporting data-driven decision-making across engineering, product, and business teams.
• Drive cross-functional alignment on financial assumptions, priorities, and recovery actions where budget gaps or risks arise.
• Support the preparation of financial reporting, dashboards, and leadership materials for governance forums and executive reviews.
• Act as a central coordination point for cost and governance topics, ensuring consistency between planning, execution, and reporting.

Requirements

• 12+ years of professional experience in the automotive industry, with a focus on program finance, cost engineering, controlling, or program management.
• Bachelor's in engineering and proven experience developing bottom-up cost estimates and managing program budgets in a cross-functional environment.
• Strong understanding of automotive program financial structures, including budgeting, forecasting, and cost tracking.
• Demonstrated ability to assess budget plausibility and challenge assumptions using data-driven analysis.
• Experience managing financial forecasting and actuals tracking, including variance analysis and risk identification.
• Proven ability to drive accountability across senior stakeholders, including influencing without direct authority.
• Experience in resource planning and allocation, aligned with program scope and timelines.
• Strong analytical and structured problem-solving skills, particularly in financial performance and risk assessment.
• Excellent communication skills, with the ability to present financial insights, risks, and trade-offs to leadership.
• Proficiency with financial planning and reporting tools and advanced Excel or equivalent analytical tools.
• Solid understanding of cross-functional automotive development processes and their financial implications.
• Demonstrated AI literacy, with the ability to leverage AI-enabled tools (e.g., analytics, automation, generative AI) to enhance forecasting accuracy, reporting efficiency, and decision-making.
• High attention to detail with a strong focus on accuracy, transparency, and governance discipline.

Qualifications

• Experience in automotive controlling, cost engineering, or program finance leadership roles.
• Project Management Professional (PMP) certification or equivalent.
• Experience working in Agile or hybrid development environments.
• Experience in EV architectures or software-defined vehicle platforms.
• A good understanding of the Volkswagen PEP Product development system.

Skills

• Strong analytical and structured problem-solving skills.
• Excellent communication skills.
• Proficiency with financial planning and reporting tools.
• AI literacy and experience with AI-enabled tools.
• High attention to detail.

Benefits

• Competitive insurance including: Medical, dental, vision and income protection plans.
• 401(k) program with: An employer match and immediate vesting.
• Generous Paid Time Off including: 20 days planned PTO, as accrued; 40 hours of unplanned PTO and 14 company or floating holidays, annually.
• Up to 16 weeks of paid parental leave for biological and adoptive parents of all genders.
• Paid leave for circumstances related to bereavement, jury duty, voting time, or military leave.
• Pay Transparency: Final salary offered will be determined based on factors including but not limited to the candidate's skills and experience. The annual performance bonus program is preset and not candidate dependent. Initial base salary range = $160,000.00 - $192,500.00.

Pay

$160,000.00 - $192,500.00

Schedule

Full-time, exempt position.