Strategic Finance Lead

About Periodic Labs

The most important scientific discoveries of our time won't happen in a traditional lab. We're an AI and physical sciences company building state-of-the-art models to accelerate breakthroughs across materials, energy, and beyond. Backed by world-class investors and growing rapidly, we operate at the pace the frontier requires. Our team brings deep expertise, genuine ownership, and an insatiable drive to push the boundaries of what's scientifically possible.

About the Role

You will be the founding member of our strategic finance function, reporting to the Head of Operations. You'll be responsible for the processes, reports, and insights that will drive our next stage of growth. This is a hands-on role with a broad scope. You'll handle everything from bookkeeping processes to board-level financial reporting and forecasting of our business.

The ideal candidate will understand a R&D heavy business, and will have experience in procurement, lab buildouts, and/or physical infrastructure.

What You'll Do

• Lead both short-term and long-range capital planning for the company. Translate technical roadmaps from the R&D team into financial operating plans, integrating assumptions around headcount ramps, compute spend, staffing mix, lab capital equipment purchases, and development timelines.
• As the company scales, establish a BvA and rolling forecast process to manage burn and resource allocation. Define and report on key metrics to management on a regular cadence and surface insights where needed.
• Track cash runway and working capital, and optimize yield on our cash balance.
• Work closely with leadership on financial strategy, commercialization approaches, and scenario planning. Provide analysis and recommendations to support major decisions (compute, pricing, hiring, expansion) and challenge assumptions with data.
• Frame tradeoffs that inform executive decisions on capital deployment and investment sequencing. Drive capital and investment efficiency by proactively identifying scope creep and budget efficiencies before spend is committed.
• Support commercialization through developing pricing strategy, analyzing unit economics, and modeling revenue ramps.
• Manage and implement finance infrastructure (tools/software) as needed (e.g. ERP, AR/AP management, financial modeling in Google Sheets). Establish internal controls and financial policies to enable scalable growth.
• Prepare monthly/quarterly financial reports for our board and investors. Support future fundraising by owning data room prep, due diligence requests, closing process, and more.

• Own the monthly close process, ensure financial records are accurate and GAAP-compliant, and manage invoices, payables, and receivables. Implement proper costing procedures to ensure that lab-level opex and capex are properly captured and reported on.

You Will Thrive in This Role If You Have

• 10+ years in finance and accounting roles, with hardware and AI experience strongly preferred
• Demonstrated expertise in financial modeling and analysis in a fast-paced, R&D environment
• Experience with procurement, lab buildouts, or physical infrastructure
• A hands-on approach and excitement to build processes where little currently exists
• Strong judgment and the ability to communicate complex financial information clearly to technical and non-technical stakeholders

Mechanics

• Minimum education: Bachelor's degree or an equivalent combination of education and training or experience
• Location: Our lab is located in Menlo Park and we prefer folks to be located in Menlo Park or San Francisco but can be flexible based on role
• Compensation: The annual compensation range for this role is approximately $220,000-$350,000
• Visa sponsorship: Yes, we sponsor visas and will do everything we can to assist in this process with our legal support.

We're building a team of the world's best - the scientists, engineers, and problem-solvers who don't just follow the frontier, they define it. If you're driven to bring AI to life in the physical world and make discoveries that have never been made before, you belong here.