Cloud Finops SME

 Cloud FinOps SME – Enterprise Data Platform (Databricks) 
San Jose, CA (Day 1 On-Site) 
Long Term

Must Have: 
~Strong FinOps / cloud cost management experience
~Databricks platform experience
~Ability to manage cloud cost optimization and governance
~Excellent communication skills (role interacts with many departments and directors)
~Candidate must be comfortable discussing financial topics and communicating with multiple stakeholders.
~Technical engineering background
~Experience optimizing Power BI
~Ability to create backlog, epics, and stories for improvement initiatives

Qualifications: 
- 6–10 years of experience in cloud cost management, FinOps, platform operations, or technical program management
- Strong understanding of public cloud services and pricing models (AWS and/or Azure)
- Experience working with data platforms such as Databricks, Apache Spark, or large-scale analytics environments
- Experience developing cost analytics, forecasting models, and financial reporting dashboards
- Knowledge of cloud cost optimization techniques including rightsizing, autoscaling, workload scheduling, and reserved capacity planning
- Experience implementing cost allocation models and tagging strategies for cloud resource tracking
- Strong analytical skills with the ability to translate cloud usage data into financial insights and optimization recommendations
- Experience collaborating with engineering, finance, and product teams in a cross-functional environment
- Experience using data analysis tools such as SQL, Python, or BI platforms for reporting and analytics
- Excellent communication skills with the ability to present insights to both technical and non-technical stakeholders

What You Will Do: 
- Monitor, analyze, and optimize cloud spending across Databricks workloads, AWS, and Azure services
- Develop and maintain cloud cost visibility dashboards and usage analytics to provide transparency into platform consumption and spending
- Partner with Data Engineering, Platform Engineering, and Product teams to implement cost-efficient cloud architecture and workload strategies
- Implement and manage cost allocation frameworks (tagging, workspace mapping, business units, products) to track unit economics such as cost per customer, workload, or data pipeline
- Develop and maintain cloud consumption forecasting models and support budgeting and financial planning cycles
- Establish and promote FinOps governance policies and best practices, including cluster usage guidelines, auto-scaling, instance optimization, and idle resource management
- Identify and drive cost optimization initiatives such as cluster right-sizing, workload scheduling, storage lifecycle policies, and reserved capacity planning
- Collaborate with Finance teams to support showback and chargeback reporting and improve cost accountability across engineering teams
- Analyze Databricks platform utilization patterns and recommend improvements to cluster configurations, job orchestration, and resource usage
- Work with cloud service providers on demand planning, reserved instances, savings plans, and capacity reservations
- Identify opportunities for automation and process improvement in cloud cost management and reporting
- Track and report FinOps KPIs, optimization initiatives, and realized savings

Nice to Have: 
- FinOps Foundation FinOps Certified Practitioner certification
- Experience working with Databricks cost optimization and cluster management
- Familiarity with cloud cost management tools such as CloudHealth, Cloudability, or native cloud cost management platforms
- Experience building cost dashboards using BI tools such as Power BI, Tableau, or Looker
- Knowledge of enterprise data platform architecture