Aimed at senior-level professionals with deep FinOps and TBM expertise who can design and implement cost optimization strategies in federal environments.
Derived from job-description analysis by Serendipath's career intelligence engine.
Original posting from Strategic Growth Partners via Ashby
Strategic Growth Partners provides both operations and strategic support to commercial organizations. Our client is a leading global professional services firm dedicated to helping organizations tackle their most complex business issues, maximize stakeholder value, and deliver sustainable change.
Their Corporate Performance Improvement practice is looking for a FinOps and Technology Business Management (TBM) leader who bridges finance, engineering, and operations to align on-premises, cloud, and enterprise IT investments in a single combined. This is both a strategic role - defining combined on-premises and cloud financial management and TBM roadmaps - and a hands-on tactical role designing and implementing cost avoidance and cost reduction measures.
Workplace Type: 80% travel. Hybrid.
Employment Type: Full-Time.
Clearance: Active Top Secret Clearance; SCI eligibility preferred where required by the engagement.
Compensation: Hourly rate is DOE.
Experience Should Include:
- Combined on-premises and cloud cost modeling, optimization, and benchmarking (government and/or commercial comparables) including AI workloads, and cost analysis of task orders.
- FinOps and TBM framework implementation - governance, tagging taxonomy, chargeback/show-back models and KPI frameworks.
- FinOps Open Cost and Usage Specification (FOCUS).
- Technology Business Management (TBM) - TBM Taxonomy cost pools, towers, and solutions; mapping on-premises data center, network, labor, and licensing costs together with cloud spend into one unified cost model.
- Workload rightsizing, auto-scaling, and commitment-based discount strategy (reserved instances, savings plans, committed-use agreements), including in classified or restricted cloud regions
- Orphaned/unused resource identification (cloud and on-premises) and remediation - VM rightsizing, guardrails, tagging automation.
- Native cloud cost management tools (AWS Cost Explorer, Azure Cost Management, GCP Billing, Oracle Cloud cost tools) and third-party FinOps and TBM platforms (Apptio, Flexera, CloudHealth) approved for government use.
- Government cost recovery and rate setting - working capital fund rate development, full-cost recovery principles, per-service and per-user cost baselines, and separating consumption-driven charges from fixed overhead.
- Enterprise software licensing consolidation and optimization, including duplicate licensing across organizations and classification levels.
- AI-assisted cost anomaly detection, forecasting, and optimization recommendation engines - must demonstrate active use of AI tools in delivery, within tools approved for the environment; AI fluency is required for this role.
- Federal Contracting, including working knowledge of FAR and DFARS requirements and task order ordering procedures.
Responsibilities:
- Develop and execute comprehensive FinOps and TBM strategies aligned with mission goals and DWCF cost-recovery requirements, detailing frameworks, processes, and governance.
- Create and maintain FinOps roadmaps embedding cost-conscious practices into engineering and architecture lifecycles.
- Design KPI frameworks with clear targets and accountability mechanisms to monitor FinOps delivery.
- Establish governance frameworks for tagging, budgeting, and resource accountability - including guardrails to prevent unnecessary resource allocation.
- Drive automation and transparency in cost reporting, anomaly detection, and forecasting - providing real-time visibility into combined on-premises and cloud spend across mission partners.
- Build per-service and per-user cost baselines and pricing transparency that customers can use to compare current costs with rates and plan budgets, including advance cost estimates for emerging services.
- Build ROI models and cost reduction business cases that quantify optimization impact for executive audiences.
- Integrate findings into A&M's broader engagement scope and deliverables.
- Build a unified TBM-based cost model that maps on-premises and cloud costs to IT towers, services, and mission partners, enabling like-for-like comparison and workload placement decisions.
- Support practice development through internal training, content creation, and people development.
Qualifications:
- 8+ years of professional experience in cloud and on-premises cost management, FinOps, and TBM practice development.
- FinOps Practitioner or FinOps Engineer certification strongly preferred; TBM certification (e.g., TBM Council) a plus.
- Demonstrated 15–30% cloud and hybrid IT cost savings delivery on prior engagements.
- Strong data analytics and visualization skills - experience with SQL, PowerBI, or equivalent.
- DoD or federal FinOps, cost recovery, or working capital fund experience strongly preferred; demonstrated cost optimization at scale in any large enterprise remains the primary qualifier.
- Bachelor's degree required; Finance, Computer Science, or MIS preferred.
- Comfortable with travel up to 80%, including on-site work as required.
- Full-time, contract, and project-based engagements available.
- Active Top Secret Clearance; SCI eligibility preferred where required by the engagement.
- United States Citizenship.
- Physically resides in the United States.
- Ability to meet DoD information system access and training requirements, including annual cyber awareness training and, where applicable, DoD 8140 workforce qualification.
What Distinguishes a Great Candidate:
Has built FinOps practices from scratch in large enterprises - not just reported on costs. Can do rate negotiation strategy and explain cost and rate structures clearly to non-finance customers. Understands both the financial and engineering levers of cost optimization across on-premises and cloud environments, and how fixed-overhead and consumption-driven costs should be treated differently in a cost-recovery environment. Brings AI-powered cost analytics and forecasting as standard practice, not as an add-on.