Senior Finance Partner

Shield AI is a venture-backed defense-tech company with the mission of protecting service members and civilians with intelligent systems. Its products include Hivemind autonomy software, V-BAT and X-BAT aircraft, and Aechelon simulation and synthetic reality technologies. With offices and facilities across the U.S., Europe, the Middle East, and Asia-Pacific, Shield AI’s technology actively supports operations worldwide. For more information, visit www.shield.ai. Follow Shield AI on LinkedIn, X, Instagram, and YouTube.

About the Role

Shield AI is seeking a Senior Finance Partner to serve as a strategic finance business partner to cross functional leaders, helping translate business priorities into clear financial plans, actionable insights, and sound decision support. This role will partner closely with leaders across the organization to improve forecasting, planning, investment visibility, and operating rigor in support of company objectives.

This person will be expected to work independently across multiple stakeholders, connect financial outcomes to business drivers, and bring structure to moderately complex problems with cross functional dependencies. The ideal candidate combines strong financial acumen with sound judgment, clear communication, and a practical approach to planning and analysis in a fast moving environment.

Location: Alexandria, VA
Working arrangement: [Insert onsite, hybrid, or remote expectation]
Travel: [Insert if applicable]
Other role conditions: [Insert clearance, export control, or other confirmed requirements if applicable]

What You’ll Do

• Partner with functional leaders to support annual planning, quarterly forecasting, monthly reporting, and ad hoc financial analysis

• Build and maintain models that improve visibility into headcount, operating expenses, investment tradeoffs, and performance against plan

• Translate business priorities into financial assumptions, scenario analyses, and recommendations that support decision making

• Identify key business drivers, risks, and opportunities, and communicate insights clearly to finance and business stakeholders

• Improve planning and reporting processes to increase accuracy, speed, and cross functional alignment

• Support the development of management reporting materials, including variance analysis and performance summaries for leadership review

• Collaborate across Finance, Accounting, People, and business teams to ensure financial plans reflect current operating realities

• Help define and track the metrics that matter most for the supported functions, ensuring leaders have practical tools to manage performance

• Drive disciplined follow through on planning inputs, forecast updates, and financial commitments across stakeholder groups

• Contribute to a strong finance partnership model by sharing best practices, improving analytical rigor, and helping raise the quality of decision support across teams

Required Qualifications

• Experience in FP&A, strategic finance, business finance, or finance business partnering

• Strong foundation in financial modeling, budgeting, forecasting, and variance analysis

• Ability to synthesize financial and operational information into clear, decision useful insights

• Experience partnering with cross functional stakeholders and influencing decisions through data and structured analysis

• Strong communication skills, including the ability to present financial concepts clearly to non-finance audiences

• High attention to detail, sound judgment, and the ability to manage multiple priorities in a dynamic environment

• Advanced proficiency in spreadsheet modeling and experience working with planning, reporting, or ERP systems

• Ability to operate with a high degree of ownership while coordinating effectively across teams

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience supporting teams in a high growth, operationally complex, or technology driven environment

• Experience with headcount planning, investment analysis, and resource allocation

• Familiarity with financial systems, BI tools, or planning platforms such as [insert approved tools if applicable]

• Experience building scalable reporting processes and improving planning workflows

• Exposure to supporting leadership reviews, board materials, or cross functional operating cadences

• Prior experience in aerospace, defense, hardware, software, or manufacturing related environments if relevant to the role