Strategic Finance, Corporate Finance
at Descript
San Francisco, United States
About the Role
Finance at Descript isn’t a back-office function, it’s a strategic partner in shaping where and how we grow. This role exists to turn insight into leverage: helping the company make smarter bets, allocate capital effectively, and improve the efficiency of how we operate. You’ll report to the VP of Finance and lead FP&A while driving key strategic finance initiatives across the company, partnering closely with Product and Engineering. Your work will influence how we evaluate investments, plan headcount and spend, manage compute and COGS, and assess the financial impact of pricing and monetization decisions.
We’re looking for someone who sees finance as a creative craft — not just about control or compliance, but about clarity, curiosity, and action. You’ll build models, frameworks, and narratives that help Descript make better decisions faster. The right person thrives at the intersection of data, product, and strategy; is fluent in SQL or eager to learn it; and has the range to move from tactical detail to company-level strategy.
What will you do?
- Lead FP&A, own company-wide planning, forecasting, and performance management. Build dashboards that surface tradeoffs and guide executive decisions (Including P&L, cash flow, and balance sheet modeling)
- Own headcount modeling and workforce planning across all functions, partnering with the exec team on hiring plans, tradeoffs, and timing.
- Drive monthly and quarterly variance analysis and performance reviews, including plan vs actuals across revenue, spend, and headcount.
- Collaborate with Product and Engineering to monitor COGS, compute and inference costs, identify efficiency opportunities, and help drive improvements in gross margin
- Evaluate areas of investment by analyzing unit economics, and ROI across products and segments
- Lead long term financial planning, opportunity sizing, and scenario modeling to support strategic decisions.
- Support data-driven narratives for board and investor updates, and support fundraising efforts with modeling, materials, and financial storytelling.
- Influence company wide resourcing decisions across headcount, operating spend, and capital allocation.
What you bring:
- 7+ years in finance roles at high-growth tech companies
- Early training in consulting or investment banking
- Experience running FP&A end to end, ideally scaling from <$50M to $200m+ ARR
- Strong modeling, analytical rigor, and ability to influence
- Cross-functional fluency with Product, Engineering, and GTM teams — able to translate financial insights into product and operational decisions
- Deep understanding of SaaS economics and pipeline dynamics
- Hands-on understanding of cloud and compute economics, with experience optimizing COGS and driving cost efficiency
- Comfortable working with data directly — proficiency in SQL or a strong desire to learn
- Excellent storytelling skills with data
- Thrives in ambiguity, rapid iteration, and cross-functional collaboration
If you don’t tick every box above, we’d still encourage you to apply. We’re building a diverse team whose skills balance and complement one another.
The base salary range for this role is $200,000 - $250,000/year. Final offer amounts will carefully consider multiple factors, including prior experience, expertise, and location, and may vary from the amount above.
About Descript
Descript is building a simple, intuitive, fully-powered editing tool for video and audio — an editing tool built for the age of AI. We are a team of 150 and the backing of some of the world's greatest investors (OpenAI, Andreessen Horowitz, Redpoint Ventures, Spark Capital).
Descript is the special company that's in possession of both product market fit and the raw materials (passionate user community, great product, large market) for growth, but is still early enough that each new employee has a measurable influence on the direction of the company.
Benefits include a generous healthcare package, 401k matching program, catered lunches, and flexible vacation time. Our headquarters are located in the Mission District of San Francisco, CA. We're hiring for a mix of remote roles and hybrid roles. For those who are remote, we have a handful of opportunities throughout the year for in person collaboration. For our hybrid roles, we're flexible, and you're an adult—we don't expect or mandate that you're in the office every day. We do believe there are valuable and serendipitous moments of discovery and collaboration that come from working together in person.
Descript is an equal opportunity workplace—we are dedicated to equal employment opportunities regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, gender identity, or Veteran status. We believe in actively building a team rich in diverse backgrounds, experiences, and opinions to better allow our employees, products, and community to thrive.