Mercurtainment: Budget analyst

Budget Analyst

The Senior Budget Analyst in our company plays a critical role in managing the financial planning, forecasting, and budget operations of the studio. This role partners closely with production teams, publishing, live-ops, marketing, and executive leadership to ensure projects stay on schedule and within financial targets.

Responsibilities

Budgeting & Forecasting

• Lead the development of annual and quarterly budgets for game projects, departments, and studio-wide operations.

• Partner with Producers, Game Directors, and Department Leads to track burn rates, headcount planning, and milestone cost projections.

• Build dynamic financial models for multi-year game development cycles (pre-production, production, QA, launch, live-ops).

• Forecast revenue, operating expenses, and cash flow for new titles and ongoing live-service games.

Financial Reporting

• Prepare monthly variance analyses with insights into underruns, overruns, staffing changes, and production delays.

• Deliver executive-level dashboards summarizing project KPIs, development budgets, and profitability expectations.

• Present findings to the CFO, Studio Head, and Production Leadership.

Production & Project Support

• Track external development spending, outsourcing budgets, contractor usage, and vendor payments.

• Monitor costs related to engines (Unity/Unreal licensing), servers, cloud usage, platform fees, and marketing campaigns.

• Assist Producers in building milestone budgets and scenario planning (delays, scope changes, feature cuts, live updates).

Process Optimization

• Improve financial tools, cost-tracking templates, and predictive models to support accurate decision-making.

• Implement best practices for budget governance and financial controls across multiple game teams.

• Collaborate with Business Intelligence to integrate financial data with player metrics (ARPU, retention, DAU impacts).

Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Work with HR on headcount planning and hiring forecasts.

• Support Marketing with campaign budgeting and ROI analysis for UA (User Acquisition).

• Partner with Legal and Procurement on vendor contracts and licensing agreements.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Finance, Accounting, Economics, or related field (MBA or CPA a plus).

• 57+ years of experience in financial analysis, budgeting, or FP&A game industry or entertainment sector strongly preferred.

• Strong financial modeling skills (Excel/Sheets, forecasting tools).

• Experience with ERP systems (NetSuite, SAP, Oracle) or budgeting platforms.

• Ability to translate complex financial data into actionable insights for non-finance teams.

• Excellent communication and presentation skills.