Applied Methods
~The MetaFinanceFinancial Planning & Strategy

Financial Planning & Strategy

This role partners with AI infrastructure and product teams to build financial models that drive capital allocation, pricing, and capacity decisions in fast-scaling AI companies. Unlike pure FP&A analysts focused on general company planning, these professionals develop deep expertise in domain-specific unit economics—whether AI compute costs, inference pricing, data center operations, or power generation—and translate complex technical and operational realities into executive decision frameworks. They typically sit within dedicated finance teams embedded across infrastructure, product, or commercial functions, working closely with engineering and operations leaders to balance growth velocity against financial discipline in capital-intensive, rapidly evolving environments.

$ titles --canonical
Financial AnalystFP&A AnalystSenior Financial AnalystDirector of FinanceVP FinanceHead of FP&AFinancial Planning ManagerStrategic Finance ManagerInvestor Relations AnalystAssociate, Investor RelationsCorporate Development AssociateSenior Director, AcquisitionsStaff Pricing AnalystPricing AnalystCapital Markets & Investor Relations
Open Jobs125
Companies Hiring47
$ expectations --role financial-planning-&-strategy

Measured across 123 of 125 open postings.

26%
expect AI in the role's own work
5% state it as a requirement
5%
work directly with customers
21%
manage people
Senior
most common level
33% of open postings
BY LEVEL

This role is advertised at 4 levels, so a single figure for the role would describe none of them. Experience and pay are the midpoints for each level on its own.

LevelShareMedian yearsMedian pay
Mid25%(31)5$202k
Senior33%(40)7$215k
Manager14%(17)6—
Director17%(21)9$293k

A dash means too few postings stated it to report a midpoint. Most companies do not publish a salary band, so pay is indicative rather than a market rate. 4 levels with fewer than 10 open postings are not shown.

WHAT THEY ASK FOR, VERBATIM

“Influence Figma Finance's AI adoption strategy, defining how AI can be embedded into systems and workflows”

Figma · Strategic Finance, AI Innovation

“AI-fluency including analysis, insight generation, process automation and improvement.”

Block · Senior Manager, Strategic Finance, Commerce Go-to-Market

“using AI, automation, and stronger data workflows to reduce manual work, improve accuracy, and surface insights faster”

Notion · Strategic Finance, Corporate

“Automation Through AI: Lead end-to-end efforts to enhance and automate financial processes and systems with AI tooling”

Abridge · Finance & Strategy Lead
$ barriers
32%
advertised as remote
of postings that state a work mode
19%
state a degree requirement
85%
still advertised a month later
about typical for the board

Requirements are a share of every open posting, so a role missing from this list is one where almost nobody asks. Work mode is different: many postings never say, so that figure counts only the ones that do. A posting stops being advertised when it is filled, cancelled or reorganised, so read the last figure as how long these stay on the market, not as time to hire.

$ flow --cohort financial-planning-&-strategy

Share of new postings expecting AI in the person's own work, by the week they appeared. Measured on the same 124 companies throughout, every one of them tracked since 18 May, so the line is not moved by us adding companies.

0%40%80%18 May: 20% of 10 postings1 Jun: 42.9% of 7 postings8 Jun: 16.7% of 6 postings15 Jun: 50% of 6 postings22 Jun: 33.3% of 6 postings29 Jun: 57.1% of 7 postings6 Jul: 9.1% of 11 postings13 Jul: 0% of 8 postings20 Jul: 50% of 14 postings27 Jul: 9.1% of 11 postings3 Aug: 16.7% of 6 postings10 Aug: 16.7% of 12 postings17 Aug: 8.3% of 12 postings24 Aug: 0% of 6 postings31 Aug: 19% of 21 postings7 Sept: 14.3% of 7 postings14 Sept: 25% of 8 postings21 Sept: 27.3% of 11 postings21%18 May21 Sept

Line is a four-week average; dots are individual weeks, 9 postings each on average. Weekly values span 57 points across this window, so read the line, not the gap between two dots.

$02

Skills

What companies are looking for in this role.

$ skills --core

Planning, budgeting and forecasting

76%

Budget control and financial modeling

68%

Business insight analysis

54%

Unit economics and pricing analysis

27%

Close and consolidation

24%

Deal structuring and negotiation

21%

Marketing and GTM measurement and attribution

19%

Go-to-market & monetization strategy

15%

Analytics data modeling

15%

Process design and improvement

12%

Capital markets and financing

12%

SQL query development

10%
$ skills --emerging

Financial and usage data modeling

33%

AI compute cost economics

18%

Financial systems implementation

11%

AI-enabled finance automation

8%
$ skills --soft

Cross-functional collaboration

42%

Executive financial communication

26%

Technical team leadership and mentoring

20%

Executive data storytelling

14%
$03

Technology

The tools and technologies that define this role.

$ tech --language
SQLmoderate
$ tech --platform
Pigmentlow
$ tech --tool
Excelmoderate
Google Sheetslow
$04

Open Jobs

125 open Financial Planning & Strategy jobs across 47 companies.

Ambience Healthcare1w
FP&A Lead
Remote - US·Finance
Figma1w
Strategic Finance, AI Innovation
San Francisco, CA • New York, NY • United States·Finance
CoreWeave1w
Senior Financial Analyst, Data Center Finance
New York, NY / Dallas, TX / Sunnyvale, CA / Livingston, NJ / Bellevue, WA·Finance
Anthropic1w
Finance & Strategy, Datacenter Strategic Initiatives
San Francisco, CA | New York City, NY·Finance
Anthropic1w
Finance & Strategy, Machines
San Francisco, CA·Finance
Anthropic1w
Finance & Strategy Manager, Machines
San Francisco, CA·Finance
Anthropic1w
Finance & Strategy, Compute
San Francisco, CA·Finance
OpenAI2w
Strategic Finance, Ads
San Francisco·Finance
OpenAI2w
M&A Finance Integration Lead
San Francisco·Finance
Block2w
Senior Manager, Strategic Finance, Commerce Go-to-Market
Bay Area, CA, United States of America·Finance
Anthropic2w
Finance & Strategy GTM, EMEA
London, UK·Finance
Anthropic2w
Finance & Strategy GTM, EMEA
Dublin, IE·Finance
Crusoe2w
Director, Finance - Cost Analytics
Denver, CO - US·Finance
Crusoe2w
Director, Finance - Cost Analytics
San Francisco, CA - US·Finance
Notion2w
Strategic Finance, Corporate
San Francisco, California·Finance
MongoDB2w
Sr. Manager, Corporate Development & Ventures
Austin; New York City; Palo Alto; San Francisco·Finance
Crusoe2w
Manager, Finance - Data Center Utilization
San Francisco, CA - US·Finance
OpenAI3w
Head of Finance - Data Centers
San Francisco·Finance
MongoDB3w
Strategic Finance Analyst
New York City·Finance
Abridge3w
Finance & Strategy Lead
SF Office·Finance