Senior Cloud FinOps engineer

AHEAD builds platforms for digital business. By weaving together advances in cloud infrastructure, automation and analytics, and software delivery, we help enterprises deliver on the promise of digital transformation.At AHEAD, we prioritize creating a culture of belonging, where all perspectives and voices are represented, valued, respected, and heard. We create spaces to empower everyone to speak up, make change, and drive the culture at AHEAD. We are an equal opportunity employer, and do not discriminate based on an individual's race, national origin, color, gender, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, religion, age, disability, marital status, or any other protected characteristic under applicable law, whether actual or perceived. We embrace all candidates that will contribute to the diversification and enrichment of ideas and perspectives at AHEAD. The Senior Cloud FinOps Engineer leads complex cloud financial management, optimization, and governance activities across multiple managed services clients. This role combines deep public cloud engineering knowledge, financial and operational analysis, customer-facing advisory capability, and execution discipline to help clients improve visibility, accountability, forecasting accuracy, unit economics, and cost efficiency across AWS, Azure, and GCP. As a senior member of the practice, this engineer is a recognized subject matter expert who owns higher-complexity analyses, leads written deliverables and client-facing advisory discussions, mentors other engineers, and drives improvements to standards, automation, and repeatable delivery practices across the FinOps service offering. The role operates with a high degree of commercial awareness and mature communication skills, engaging service owners, process owners, finance and procurement stakeholders, and executive audiences directly. The role is performed remotely within the United States and includes up to 10 percent domestic travel, along with occasional after-hours or weekend support during major incidents, reporting deadlines, approved change windows, or other activities required by contracted service commitments. Duties / Responsibilities Cloud Cost Analysis and Optimization • Lead detailed analysis of cloud spend, usage trends, allocation accuracy, anomalies, and optimization opportunities across AWS, Azure, and GCP using native tooling and approved third-party FinOps platforms. • Identify, quantify, prioritize, and drive optimization opportunities including rightsizing, idle resource cleanup, storage and data transfer optimization, licensing alignment, and scheduling strategies. • Track optimization opportunities through identified, recommended, approved, implemented, and realized states, validating financial outcomes and avoiding double-counting or attribution of unrealized savings. • Lead cost visibility and allocation for containerized and Kubernetes workloads, including shared cluster cost distribution, namespace and label-based allocation, and idle capacity analysis. • Analyze and optimize AI and GPU-related spend, including accelerated compute utilization, model training and inference costs, and consumption of managed AI and machine learning services. • Extend cost analysis to SaaS, software licensing, and marketplace spend where these fall within the agreed scope of the engagement. • Conduct best-practices reviews that combine cost analysis with operational excellence analysis, using cloud-native and approved AHEAD tooling. Allocation, Unit Economics, and Reporting • Lead complex cost allocation and tagging efforts, including governance standards, mapping logic, reporting accuracy, inherited tag strategies, and treatment of non-taggable resources. • Define and maintain unit economics and cost-per-unit metrics that tie cloud spend to business drivers such as customers, transactions, environments, products, or workloads. • Own or lead creation of dashboards, reports, budgets, forecasts, showback and chargeback views, executive summaries, and recurring service review content. • Lead data validation and reconciliation across billing exports, connectors, cost datasets, and reporting models to improve trust in reported values, including work toward standardized billing data formats such as FOCUS. • Implement and maintain continuous tagging governance through cloud-native policy enforcement and automated remediation scripting, refining coverage as untagged or non-compliant resources are identified. • Maintain client-facing FinOps tooling and portals, ensuring predictive analytics, multi-account views, and resource, configuration, and environment change reporting remain current and accurate. Commitment and Rate Optimization • Manage commitment portfolios across clients, including reserved capacity and savings plan modeling, purchase recommendations, coverage and utilization targets, expiration and renewal planning, and savings realization tracking. • Support enterprise agreement, private pricing, and committed-spend discussions by providing consumption analysis, commitment scenarios, and drawdown forecasts to client and AHEAD stakeholders. Client Advisory and Communication • Develop and present financially grounded recommendations that translate technical findings into business value for engineering, finance, procurement, and executive stakeholders. • Communicate with external customers, including senior management, on matters requiring explanation, interpretation, and advisory judgment, and help client leadership set strategic direction beyond individual tactics. • Translate customer business requirements into technical and financial requirements, and write or lead complex deliverables within the practice. • Partner with CloudOps, DevOps, platform, application, finance, procurement, and client stakeholders to support implementation of recommendations and validate realized outcomes. • Maintain timely ticket updates, work documentation, meeting follow-ups, and internal and customer communications in accordance with service delivery expectations. • Facilitate recurring client advisory calls that cover cost and billing changes, identify additional systems or workloads the client may want to migrate to the cloud, and gather client feedback on AHEAD's service delivery performance. Engineering, Automation, and Delivery Leadership • Build and maintain queries, data transformations, and automation using SQL and at least one scripting language such as Python or PowerShell, in order to reduce manual effort, improve repeatability, and increase delivery quality and scale. • Integrate third-party tools, billing data sources, and reporting platforms into approved FinOps tooling and governance structures, including onboarding of new clients, accounts, subscriptions, and projects. • Provide credible time and effort estimates based on available information, and prioritize and complete work independently within committed timelines while meeting established quality standards. • Provide technical leadership and coordinate technical delivery resources across skillsets when required, including cross-practice work and deliverables, without direct personnel-management responsibility. • Initiate and participate in authoring project change requests when additional work is identified beyond agreed scope. • Execute approved remediation activities, including workload resizing, workload deletion, and commitment implementation, through client ticketing or service-request workflows, using client-granted permissions and following client change-control procedures. • Monitor delivery hours against contracted monthly allocations, flagging utilization trends and coordinating any approved overage or rescoping through the change-request process. Mentorship and Practice Development • Mentor Cloud FinOps Engineers and other team members by reviewing work, sharing methods, improving documentation, and elevating team capability and consistency. • Contribute to internal standards, reusable assets, playbooks, work instructions, and continuous improvement initiatives across the FinOps practice, and provide measurable input into AHEAD products, processes, standards, and plans. • Influence direct team members, the broader internal team, and external customers to adopt new concepts, best practices, and approaches. • Serve as a reliable resource for thought leadership content, workshops, industry conferences, and webinars representing the practice. • Support pre-sales, solutioning, scoping, positioning, and service maturation efforts by providing subject matter expertise, effort input, and delivery perspective, and identify and escalate new client opportunities. • Deliver FinOps and tooling education and training for client teams to build internal cost-management capability, in addition to mentoring within the AHEAD practice. General • Maintain availability during the assigned team's standard business hours, with reasonable flexibility to accommodate recurring client meetings and service reviews across United States time zones. • Participate in the team's on-call or escalation rotation where applicable to the assigned account portfolio. • Stay current on cloud pricing models, FinOps best practices, and service capabilities while helping refine how AHEAD delivers cloud cost optimization and advisory services. • Provide occasional after-hours support for client meetings, reporting deadlines, change windows, critical incidents, or urgent cost-related issues when required. • Maintain relevant professional and cloud certifications consistent with role, practice, and individual development requirements, and meet or exceed individual goal objectives. • Other job duties as assigned. Education and Experience Minimum Required – • Bachelor’s degree in information technology, computer science, finance, business, or a related field, or an equivalent combination of education and practical experience. • 5+ years of combined experience in cloud engineering, cloud operations, infrastructure, or cloud cost management, including at least 3 years focused on cloud financial management, cost optimization, or FinOps. • 3+ years in a customer-facing, stakeholder-facing, consulting, or service delivery role with responsibility for presenting findings and recommendations to both technical and business audiences. • Hands-on experience designing, deploying, or operating large-scale, multi-account, multi-subscription, or enterprise cloud environments. • Subject matter expertise in at least one major public cloud provider (AWS, Azure, or GCP); strong Azure or AWS experience preferred, with GCP exposure considered a plus. • Working proficiency in SQL and at least one scripting language such as Python or PowerShell, sufficient to query and transform cost datasets and automate recurring reporting. • Experience using cloud cost management, billing analysis, or reporting platforms, whether native cloud tools or approved third-party solutions. • Demonstrated experience integrating third-party tools, billing data sources, and reporting platforms. • Strong analytical, spreadsheet, and problem-solving skills, with the ability to manage multiple priorities in a shared services or multi-client environment. • Must be legally authorized to work in the United States. • Ability to successfully complete AHEAD and client-required background screening; certain client environments may require additional vetting or clearance. Preferred Experience • Experience working in a managed services, consulting, or outsourced service delivery environment. • Experience supporting more than one public cloud provider in a FinOps or cost optimization capacity. • Relevant certifications such as FinOps Certified Practitioner, FinOps Certified Professional, or AWS, Azure, and GCP certifications. • Experience with platforms such as Harness CCM, Apptio Cloudability, CloudZero, Power BI, Tableau, SQL, Python, or PowerShell. • Experience with forecasting, budgeting, allocation methodologies, showback or chargeback models, commitment planning, and savings realization tracking. • Familiarity with the FinOps Framework and with standardized billing data formats such as FOCUS. • Experience with Kubernetes or container cost allocation, and with AI or GPU cost management. • Experience leading or mentoring junior engineers and reviewing deliverables for quality and consistency. • Familiarity with ticketing and workflow platforms such as ServiceNow, Jira, or similar tools. • Experience contributing to pre-sales activities, including scoping, positioning, and technology adoption.Knowledge , Skills , Abilities • Advanced understanding of cloud billing constructs including on-demand usage, reserved capacity, savings plans or commitments, amortization, allocation methods, and forecasting drivers. • Working knowledge of unit economics concepts and the ability to connect infrastructure consumption to business and product metrics. • Understanding of performance, scaling, and functional characteristics of cloud and open-source technologies, with the ability to recommend standard design patterns and best practices. • Understanding of cost behavior in containerized, serverless, data platform, and accelerated computing environments. • Strong analytical skills with the ability to interpret large datasets, identify trends, quantify financial impact, and convert findings into prioritized recommendations. • Ability to communicate technical and financial concepts clearly to technical, operational, procurement, finance, and executive audiences. • Strong written, verbal, and presentation skills with a professional customer-facing presence and the ability to lead recurring advisory discussions. • Ability to lead work independently in higher-complexity situations while also collaborating effectively across distributed teams, time zones, and functions. • Strong documentation, organization, and time management skills with consistent follow-through and attention to detail. • Demonstrated ownership mindset with the ability to balance competing priorities in a fast-paced multi-client environment while maintaining service quality. • Continuous improvement mindset with an interest in automation, standardization, methodology refinement, and scalable service delivery. • Ability to mentor others, improve team capability, and contribute positively to practice development and knowledge sharing. • Strong project and situational awareness, with the judgment to escalate appropriately and accept responsibility for individual and team outcomes. Culture and Responsibilities • Support initiatives beyond immediate area of responsibility and encourage cross-team interaction. • Motivate people to think creatively and achieve success through others. • Consistently pursue self-development and advance the AHEAD delivery model for self and teammates. • Bring a positive, team-oriented attitude toward AHEAD, its clients, and its partners, including willingness to extend effort beyond normal working hours for short intervals to support a client initiative or production rollout.Physical Requirements The physical demands described below are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this position. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform these essential functions, in accordance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), and other applicable federal, state, and local laws. Performance of Essential Functions: Ability to safely and effectively perform all essential job functions listed herein while meeting established productivity and quality standards. Attendance: Ability to maintain regular and predictable attendance, consistent with ADA, FMLA, and other applicable requirements. Includes ability to safely and reliably travel to and from an office and/or client work site, as required. The physical demands described below are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this position. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform these essential functions, in accordance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), and other applicable federal, state, and local laws. Performance of Essential Functions: Ability to safely and effectively perform all essential job functions listed herein while meeting established productivity and quality standards. Attendance: Ability to maintain regular and predictable attendance, consistent with ADA, FMLA, and other applicable requirements. Includes ability to safely and reliably travel to and from an office and/or client work site, as required. Physical Requirements Frequency Never Occasionally .25 – 2.5hrs Daily Frequently 2.5