Principal Finance Manager, Amazon Leo Finance
- 🇺🇸 United States
- On-site
- Manager or above
- 22 hours ago
- $188,200
- Lean
- Waterfall
- SOX
- ITAR
- AI
- Change Management
- Health insurance
- Equity
- Pension
Amazon Leo is building the world's most advanced low Earth orbit satellite network, delivering fast, affordable broadband to enterprise and consumer customers globally. This is one of the most ambitious infrastructure programs in Amazon's history — combining satellite manufacturing, silicon development, global supply chain, terrestrial infrastructure, and enterprise technology at unprecedented scale. Leo Infrastructure Finance is at the center of it all.
The successful candidate will have effective analytical and communication skills, with an ability to build and articulate financial results and analytical insights to executive level business and finance leaders. You will be entrepreneurial by nature as Leo has a start-up mentality, analytical in approach, have a demonstrated ability to develop financial models that provide intelligence for business decisions and be able to leverage your project management skills to lead simultaneous workstreams.
This role requires a self-starter with superb business partnering skills, a keen attention to detail, ability to work in a fast-paced environment with a high degree of ambiguity, and a track record of deep financial analysis. The candidate must have the aptitude to incorporate new approaches and methodologies (including statistical concepts) while dealing with big data, be able to develop and define key business questions and to build data sets that answer those questions.
This role leads the financial planning, decision support, and controllership functions for Amazon Leo's Launch Operations — the business that gets every satellite from the ground to orbit, owning the safe, efficient, and reliable processing and delivery of every payload from arrival at our facilities through separation from the launch vehicle.
The Principal Finance Manager serves as the principal finance partner to Launch Operations leadership, owning the financial frameworks behind multi-billion-dollar launch-capacity commitments across a diverse base of launch providers and a payload-processing footprint spanning facilities on two continents and multiple launch complexes.
This is an opportunity to build rather than inherit — standing up finance support for new payload-processing facilities, governing capital and purchase-order approvals for launch spend, and designing the planning, close, and reporting mechanisms that scale with launch cadence as the program grows. Leading a lean, high-caliber team of finance managers and senior analysts, the successful candidate will shape how Launch Finance partners a much larger operational organization through a period of rapid growth and strategic change.
Key job responsibilities
Launch Procurement and Capacity Economics:
The Principal Finance Manager owns the financial frameworks behind multi-billion-dollar launch-capacity commitments, modeling launch-provider contracts and their associated cash-flow profiles across a diverse base of launch providers. Responsibilities include liquidated-damages and schedule-rebalance assessments, scenario analysis for launch-mix and capacity decisions, the launch-manifest and headcount waterfall analyses that connect cadence to spend, and the financial evaluation of strategies to foster emerging providers for a resilient launch manifest and to secure capacity for future deployment horizons.
Financial Planning, Forecasting and Performance Management:
This role creates and executes the Annual Operating Plans (OP1/OP2), quarterly guidance, and monthly estimates in accordance with corporate schedules and governance, and delivers meaningful variance analysis for monthly and quarterly business reviews with a coherent narrative that drives corrective action. Responsibilities include developing operating-expense and capital budgets, labor and headcount forecasts, and the performance frameworks that measure budget, cost, and schedule/cadence alignment and forecast accuracy — creating transparency between operational execution and financial outcomes.
Controllership and Financial Governance:
The role owns month-end close, variance analysis, and management financial reporting (MFR) across both operating expense and a multi-billion-dollar capital portfolio, and governs capital and purchase-order approvals for launch spend. This leader supports adherence to Amazon's financial internal controls through regular monitoring and auditing, drives awareness of how internal controls impact business practices, and ensures compliance with documented financial directives — SOX controls across launch spend — while supporting ITAR compliance across a multi-country payload-processing footprint.
Capital Planning, New Facility Standup and Scaling:
The Principal Finance Manager evaluates and prioritizes capital investment across payload-processing facilities, infrastructure, and ground support equipment, leading financial due diligence and ensuring alignment with return and payback criteria. The role develops finance support for new payload-processing facilities from inception — capital approval, standup costs, and ongoing cost management — models capacity and cash-flow trade-offs of expansion decisions, and designs planning, close, and reporting mechanisms that scale as the launch footprint expands across sites and continents.
Strategic Partnership and Operational Decision-Making:
The role serves as the primary financial advisor to Launch Operations leadership, providing strategic guidance on launch-capacity economics, capital investments, and operational efficiencies by analyzing results, explaining business trends, and recommending improvements. The Principal Finance Manager partners with operations, supply chain, and program leaders on capital investment analysis, productivity initiatives, and cost-reduction programs, and provides clear, accurate financial guidance to leaders on-site and across the broader organization — enabling optimal decisions in a fast-paced, high-ambiguity environment.
AI-Enabled Process Automation and Reporting:
The role leads the finance team's automation agenda — taking preparation time out of recurring work and building capability in reporting, analysis, and self-serve dashboards. This includes standardizing high-value automations across close-related processes (automated preparation of launch business reviews, month-end-close variance analysis, and MFR documents) so the team spends its time on judgment and partnering rather than assembling data, championing adoption through embedded AI subject-matter experts and a visible mechanism for spreading best practices and recognizing contributions.
Team Leadership and Development:
The Principal Finance Manager leads, mentors, and develops a lean, high-caliber team of finance managers and senior analysts, fostering a continuous-improvement environment. The role sets priorities, develops talent (including supporting promotion readiness), shares best practices across the broader finance organization, and leads change-management initiatives that strengthen the team's planning, analysis, and financial decision-making capability.
Basic qualifications
- 7+ years of finance technology, forecast & budgeting, or other finance-focused competency experience
- 10+ years of dissecting financial data and identifying patterns that support business strategy experience
- 10+ years of spearheading strategic cross-functional initiatives that deliver measurable financial results and advance organizational objectives experience
- 10+ years of finance, accounting, or related analytical field experience
- Bachelor's degree in business, finance, accounting, tax, economics, or a related analytical field
- Can meet export control requirements by being a U.S. citizen or national, U.S. permanent resident (i.e., current Green Card holder), or lawfully admitted into the U.S. as a refugee or granted asylum
Preferred qualifications
- MBA, or CPA- Experience in a leadership position managing finance, accounting and operational processes
- 5+ years of hiring, leading and developing teams experience
Amazon is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate on the basis of protected veteran status, disability, or other legally protected status.
Our inclusive culture empowers Amazonians to deliver the best results for our customers. If you have a disability and need a workplace accommodation or adjustment during the application and hiring process, including support for the interview or onboarding process, please visithttps://amazon.jobs/content/en/how-we-hire/accommodations for more information. If the country/region you’re applying in isn’t listed, please contact your Recruiting Partner.
The base salary range for this position is listed below. Your Amazon package will include sign-on payments and restricted stock units (RSUs). Final compensation will be determined based on factors including experience, qualifications, and location. Amazon also offers comprehensive benefits including health insurance (medical, dental, vision, prescription, Basic Life & AD&D insurance and option for Supplemental life plans, EAP, Mental Health Support, Medical Advice Line, Flexible Spending Accounts, Adoption and Surrogacy Reimbursement coverage), 401(k) matching, paid time off, and parental leave. Learn more about our benefits athttps://amazon.jobs/en/benefits.
USA, WA, BELLEVUE - 139,100.00 - 188,200.00 USD annually
Principal Finance Manager, Amazon Leo Finance · Amazon